


I fear no fate (for you are my fate)

by sinnabonka



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Angst with a Happy Ending, Biblical Reinterpretation, Bless this pairing, Crowley can Sing, Crowley saves Aziraphale, Crowley's relationship with God, Drama & Romance, Forbidden Love, Human Aziraphale (Good Omens), Love at First Sight, M/M, Mutual Pining, Mythology References, Seraph Crowley (Good Omens), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22990234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinnabonka/pseuds/sinnabonka
Summary: The one where J in Anthony J. Crowley stands for Jehoel. He was a seraph once, sneaked out of Heaven and met a very special someone, who taught him a thing or two about the most human thing - love.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 119
Kudos: 156





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> After this long, exciting and exhausting journey, I am happy to share this very special story with you. 
> 
> It would never be possible without my precious beta, Mims, with your gentle hand guiding me, the story is so much better now! 
> 
> Additionally, I would love to thank amazing @mia-ugly, who is a true miracle to this world. Thank you for sharing some tough moments with me! The mermaid story it is after all! 
> 
> And thank you, gentle soul, for being here with me today.
> 
> Please come say hi on tumblr @sinnabonka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley comes to Earth and finds something worth staying longer for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song: Elton John & Kiki Dee - Don’t go breaking my heart
> 
> Here’s an art for the chapter:
> 
> https://sinnabonka.tumblr.com/post/611502094964408320/art-for-the-first-chapter-of-i-fear-no-fate-for

The downpour doesn’t look like it’s ending anytime soon.  _ God bless the rain _ , thinks Crowley, watching the city from above,  _ so long as it’s not the one to wipe out humanity. _

He flaps his wings, black and posh, sailing through the rainy night, when he finally notices the familiar rooftop with granite gargoyles on the corners. He hovers for a moment in the air, wings beating just enough to keep him aloft, enjoying the panorama of the world waking up in the silver glare of a new day being born.

It’s silent here, on Earth, in London, especially at such an early hour; Crowley comes over when Heaven's business is too much and the constant  _ “Holy, holy, holy” _ gets on his nerves. It’s enjoyable to get some wind in his flame red hair, to spread all of his wings out once in a while. 

He’s been coming to the same roof since the day the building was constructed in the nineteenth century. Has seen generations changing one another, carriages being replaced by cars, the flow of time reflecting in the way people talk and dress. The seraphim aren’t meant to care about any being other than God Herself, much less supposed to spend time on Earth - that’s what the lowest orders are for. He lets himself watch a little though. Not like it will hurt anyone.

Once his bare feet meet the cold, sodden surface, Crowley lets out a sigh. He folds in his wings, protecting the feathers from the shivering rain and revelling in the feeling of freedom. It's exciting to be wingless for a while. Quite an interesting experience, he would say, when originally you have six of them. 

Usually Crowley sits between gargoyles on the rooftop, enjoying the first beautiful rays lightning up the very fabric of the world, watching people rushing on with their business. Today his attention is drawn away from the vibrant streets to one particular open backyard window. There is nothing special about it, what attracts the seraph to the buildings rear is a song.

The singing itself could never surprise Crowley, he and his brothers are known for having the greatest voices in Heaven, Hell, and most likely on Earth. But this... The voice sounds so happy, so full of life, as no siren’s voice has ever sounded.

Crowley stands at the roof’s edge and looks into the open window. He’s definitely lucky today, because the young man is enjoying the moment too much to notice a pale figure on the rooftop of the building opposite.

He’s chopping vegetables and singing: 

_ Ooh-hoo, nobody knows it, nobody knows _ _   
_ _ Right from the start _ _   
_ _ I gave you my heart _ _   
_ __ Oh oh, I gave you my heart

Crowley feels a little awkward about being an unwelcome audience to it, but he simply can’t take his eyes off of him: the relaxed, clumsy movements, big shiny smile, silver curly hair, the ridiculous (the seraph can say it is, even though he has nothing to do with human fashion) jumper, even his imperfect singing. This one definitely stands out.  _ This one is different. _

Crowley blinks slowly, eyeing the silhouette lit with the rising sun.

The young man continues singing, comes to the window and shuts it. Hanging off the ledge of the roof, Crowley follows him walking toward the back of the room. He fetches a book from the shelf there and on his way to the table, puts the lid onto the pot with bubbling chicken soup in. All the while merrily humming, the man sits down and focuses all his attention on a story.

Crowley watches him a moment longer, admiring the view and hoping to hear the voice again, but a sudden gust of wind brings his brothers’ singing: “ _ Jehoel! Jehoel! Come to us! _ ”

He rolls his eyes, bringing forth the wings he'd hidden. 

“A’right, a’right. But it’s  _ Crowley _ now, how hard could that be to remember?” 

A flap of black wings, and the rooftop is empty. The man takes his eyes off the book and looks around; the odd feeling of being watched leaves and he returns to his tale of two cities.

****

Crowley steps onto the sacred ground and annoyedly shakes off the rain of his wings. Smirks when he notices the pair of angels watching him from the corner of the room, and heads toward them with his chin proudly up. The angels, both in the same robes as Crowley (only his is dark graphite, not white), start trading puzzled looks as he approaches, but soon meet him with the politicians’ grins he’s so used to.

“Summoned me?” asks Crowley, giving every appearance of being bored with this conversation exactly one second before it started. He gently touches his ruffled damp feathers, assessing the damage, estimating the time he’ll have to spend on grooming later.

“It’s time to sing,” proclaims one, thin like a twig, with dark brown hair reaching his shoulders.

“And you were not around,” adds the second, bobbling his ash blond head. “Where have you been, Jehoel?”

“Around.” Crowley shrugs, biting his tongue not to nag about the name change again, and starts to walk toward the huge golden door. He pushes it open and looks back at his brothers, who are glancing at each other with confusion. “You coming? Or is a special invitation needed?”

Without waiting for them to follow, Crowley enters the room, which appears to be the throne room, and takes his place behind the golden back of the throne. He looks around at six of his brothers, the winged voices of God all dressed in their finest, and starts to sing. Other voices join his, and the everlasting silver song echoes, spreading around Heaven.

****

At his first opportunity, when the other seraphim are totally absorbed in talking about some gossip an archangel brought them, Crowley quietly slips out of Heaven. Flies to the same rooftop as the day before and freezes in anticipation of the new earthly day to begin.

He brushes his flamelicked hair away from his forehead and eyes the empty street below. He knows everything that is about to happen. Step by step, each wave of hand, each kind nod. The world is constantly changing, but some things remain the same. There’s always a person who starts it all, the solo instrument in the world’s orchestra. Twenty years ago, it was  _ Mr. Velvet Trousers _ , the owner of the guitar shop down the block, and now it’s  _ Mrs. Hello Sunshine _ . Crowley likes the small tradition they’ve got. She opens the shutters, rolls out the wooden fruit trolley on the road and pushes the wheel of life with her white wrinkled arms.

“Hello, sunshine.” She greets the owner of the bakery across the street with a soft smile. “Rough night with Elly, huh?”

“Morning.” The man nods at her and sighs. “This child is a disaster. She doesn’t sleep.”

The old lady laughs, and the sound of her laughter floods the street with warmth, same as sunlight.

“Just wait for her teeth to start growing, that’s when all the fun begins.” She turns the sign on the door to open and while still broadly smiling, walks back into the grocery store. 

Similar small talk always signals the start of the day. It all happens like a well-rehearsed symphony, and sometimes Crowley imagines he is a conductor, inviting each instrument to step in with a wide gesture. Sometimes he wonders if it all goes the same way when he’s not around. 

He drives all those thoughts away. Of course, it does. Even if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, it does make a sound. Stupid of him to assume it is not. 

The tolling church bell calls forth a flood of people in the streets. Crowley holds onto the granite gargoyle, arms around its neck as he leans out to follow the flow with his eyes.

“Okay,  _ Horatio _ , what we’ve got here?” Crowley looks at the queue in front of the bakery from above and sighs. He sees a few familiar customers among the great faceless mass, all ready to purchase the same croissant, cinnamon roll or sandwich as they have daily for at least the last six months. “Do you think today is the day? Maybe Mr. Smartass will finally ask the blond one out?”

Something tickles the shell of Crowley’s mind and he turns his back to the street. Right, there was one more thing he wanted to check on today.  _ The singing stranger _ , thinks Crowley, walking to the other side of the roof. He looks into the backyard window, hoping to see the new friend of his in that small flat on the top floor, but unfortunately for him, the window remains closed and the apartment’s empty.

He pushes away the slight disappointment and it floats away, like a runaway balloon.

Crowley has been on Earth plenty of times before, heard people singing on stages, by the fire with friends, in the shower, quite possible even while chopping carrots for chicken soup. Just singing is not enough to intrigue him, but here he is, bent over the railings, searching out any sign of the man’s presence in the apartment. 

He does the same the next day, and the day after that, and after that. He treats it like a casual check, not giving enough credit to his heart, racing in the chest up to the moment he bends over to look into that particular window. Whenever he does, his heart stops for a moment.

But the mysterious stranger is nowhere to be seen. It’s been almost a week already, Crowley wonders if anything bad has happened. Not like he cares, right? He can lie to himself, but he definitely started at some point.

On the sixth day Crowley flies down again. He peeks into the window, that meets him with the blackness of the empty room behind, one more time, still cultivating the gentle sprout of hope.  _ Not a big deal _ , he thinks sitting down onto the roof.  _ Why do I even care? Just a human, like any other around.  _ To prove the point, he even tries to find something interesting enough to switch his attention to in another window. A moment later a sigh breaks the night silence, and he gives up. He tilts his head back and looks up on the black dome above the human world, covered with tiny pulsing dots, glaring and blinking at him, like millions of dancing fireflies far far away. He barely sees the stars, it’s too bright in the city with all the lights on, but the view is astonishing. Still much better than the one in Heaven. He stretches his legs out and covers himself with wings, like with a huge blanket.

Suddenly there’s a warm yellow light pouring into the yard and the sound of window opening.

“I see your point, dad” comes a soft voice, and Crowley hurries to the roof edge. He looks down and sees the singing-young-man, safe and sound, with a gym bag on his shoulder. 

A tiny smile of relief appears on Crowley’s face, right before he notices the man’s not alone.

“No, you don’t, it’s nothing but a joke to you,” answers the father, apparently, slamming the door closed behind his back. “Life is not one of your stories, Aziraphale, things don’t magically happen when you want them to. Grow up, please.”

_ Aziraphale? That’s a pretty name, is it cherubian? _ crosses Crowley’s mind.

“At your age, me and your mom...”

“Oh my God, could we not?” Aziraphale throws the bag on the chair and starts to take off his jacket. “We’ve talked about it so many times already, why spoil the evening? I was going to make us sushi.”

“We pinned so many hopes on you, and look!” The other man waves his hand vaguely. “You sit here with your stupid books. No job, no family...” 

“I  _ have _ a job.”

The older man shakes his head. “Telling stories is hardly a job, Az. You mom would be so disappointed!”

“She would not,” Aziraphale replies sharply, throwing the arrowy, darkened by pain look toward his father. “You are.”

Crowley watches the man’s face, sad and hurt, and his own heart squeezes. He presses a hand to his chest and looks down at it, feeling something cold and heavy tangling inside his ribcage. It’s a new feeling for him. He’s never experienced empathy, never had a reason. Perhaps, he was never meant to.

“You should leave.” Aziraphale speaks with a trembling voice, standing still with the jacket in his hand.

“You are probably right,” echoes his father as he backs toward the door.

They both stand in the doorway, trying to find the right words to say. There are no such words. Sometimes it’s better to keep it unsaid, to hold it tight, put it into the all-forgiving box of your heart. 

Two pairs of almost identical greyish blue eyes travel the room, trying to find something to hold on to, to use against one another, or to use like a shield. 

After his father leaves, Aziraphale doesn’t move for another second, just keeps staring at the closed door. He does it silently, lets bitter tears drip down his cheeks. Then curling up on the couch, he sobs himself to sleep.

Crowley watches the man tossing in his troubled sleep; he feels that this soul is hurt, and somehow it’s bugging him. Perhaps he has spent too much time around here, definitely has gotten too close.  _ This can’t be good _ , he thinks quickly, glancing at the sky.

He’s not allowed to stay any longer, his absence will be noticed.

But right before flying back, Crowley (he could swear, he didn’t see it coming) closes his eyes, hands raised to the sky, and bestows his warmest blessing upon the human on the couch. Heat is leaking all over his heart when the thought takes shape. That same second, Aziraphale’s face gets the calm and soft expression human children have when asleep.

_ Why on Earth did I do it? _ thinks the seraph. Then he spreads his wings and flies up toward the sky.

********

Crowley sits at the long dining table with his brothers, his thoughts still occupied by the ease with which the holy words came out. The blessing is the most valuable of Heaven’s presents, and the blessing of the seraph is almost the same as asking God for a favor Herself (the amount of middlemen reduced to the minimum required). Crowley nervously fiddles with wilted red flowers in his hands, staring blankly at the wall. The petals, like bitter red tears, end up on the floor, when the thoughts get too complicated. 

Another seraph comes closer and gently puts a hand onto Crowley’s shoulder.

“Brother, what’s on your mind? What troubles you?’ Cahethel sits next to Crowley. His long dark hair, braided in the Nordic style, falls down on his shoulders in soft waves. The flowers revive when he touches them with his fingertips.  _ That’s just what he’s like _ , thinks Crowley, when he notices a small green leaf unfolding on the stem, _ he doesn’t even see it. _

“We miss your leading voice. Our songs are not as good as they used to be with you,” Cahethel continues, grabbing his brother’s hand. His skin is a bit tan, olive and tight, and next to Crowley's it looks dark. He puts a second palm onto his brother’s and squeezes it.

“You guys are doing a’right.” Crowley proclaims with the voice, trembling from the smile curving his lips, and covers both brother’s hands with his own. Gives it a second thought and adds with the fake dreamy look on his face, every celestial being is born with: “I mean, your song is beautiful as ever, you lack nothing.”

Cahethel tilts his head. The expression on his face says:  _ Poor silly brother, what happened to you? _ He doesn’t ask the question aloud, just shakes his head and gives Crowley the revived flowers. The second Crowley touches them, they dry out and turn to ashes. 

“Alright then.” His brother clears his throat, losing any interest in Crowley. As always, once seraphim feel their words are not taken into consideration, they get bored. “Come sing with us, Jehoel.”

Crowley nods, eyes still fixed on the burgundy ashes in his hands.

Cahethel joins the rest of their brothers and they sing, and their beautiful voices can be heard from each corner of Heaven. And at this point Crowley is ready to admit that he hates it.

********

The very next windy evening he comes back to find Aziraphale singing again. It’s been a long stretch of silence, and when Crowley hears the voice, his heart freezes and then gradually melts like butter.

He discovers a better spot on the balcony of the neighbouring building, where he has a good view of Aziraphale’s flat. The apartment is vacant, so Crowley decides to use it as his unofficial Earth residence. 

An invisible force beckons him there over and over again.  _ It’s just curiosity _ , lies the seraph to himself, hiding behind the railings. 

Aziraphale reads, welcomes friends for wine once in a while, cooks something that smells really good and listens to music on the vintage record player. Crowley sees him spending most of his time alone though. He wonders: how fast will he fall if anyone finds out about him having any kind of thoughts about keeping this man company.

Of course, he never shows up at the apartment. At least, for now.

There are more blessings and miracles every day: more sweet dreams, a never-ending cocoa in the cup while Aziraphale reads at night, no traffic on the way to City at rush hour, more sunny mornings than London has ever seen. It all comes naturally, right from Crowley’s heart.

One day, right at the moment when the man leaves the building, the rain stops and a shy ray of sun peeks out of the cloudy sky. The weather  _ miraculously _ (yes, he uses the word) changes right when Aziraphale and his friend decide to go for a longish walk in St. James park. It brings a smile to Aziraphale’s face and he tells his friend that there’s definitely someone out there who put in a word for them. 

_ That smile _ . 

The smile on Aziraphale’s face is the only reason Crowley keeps on breaking each and every rule he has ever been given.  _ Whatever it takes to make it shine again _ , crosses the seraph’s mind as he snaps his fingers, performing another tiny miracle.

“God, I wish that thing with Meryl Streep was still playing,” Aziraphale says during lunch with another old friend and - what a coincidence! - “The Devil Wears Prada” is on for one additional week. It’s easy, it’s unnoticeable, Heaven doesn’t have the accounting system for this kind of thing. Nobody pays any attention unless there’s a cult in South London.

The next night, Crowley flies over and finds Aziraphale drinking wine and telling stories, anything coming to his mind, in the soft, hollow voice. It’s two of them there, two young men, but only Aziraphale is speaking. Crowley listens to the story, as it is meant for him.

“...the starlight nights in the pathless woods are warm and filled with the smoke of the campfire that smells like pine tar or maple syrup, filled with stories, full of magic.” Crowley listens with his eyes closed, imagining the places he has never been, clearly seeing the smile on Aziraphale’s face, as he goes on: “Bare feet on the cold sand down by the river, the clothes wet with morning dew… This is what makes the moment real. That’s when I feel alive.”

_ Bless this night _ , thinks Crowley, circling around Aziraphale’s building.  _ Bless this day, _ adds the seraph,  _ bless all of his days. Bless his heart, let it never feel down; bless his smile, never let it fade away.  _ And when he flies back to Heaven, Crowley whispers:  _ Be safe. _

And Aziraphale is.

Something warm and gentle tangles inside Crowley’s chest as he runs away, flies higher and higher, not able to handle the massive wave of loneliness and longing approaching.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At some point, and Crowley has no idea how the Heaven it happened, his life here started to feel like something he simply had to endure to return to the place he actually wanted to be. Being a seraph became his full-time job and Earth became a home to his heart. 

Crowley flies down to the calm and dark sea and lands on the smooth surface. As his feet touch the water, the ripples spread out around his feet in circles. A heavy black raincloud slowly floats toward the land, cutting the electrified air with white blades of lightning. It’s definitely raining there already. He stares at the horizon, feeling the light breeze on his skin, and when he licks his bottom lip, can taste the salt on the tip of his tongue.

“What took you so long, Jehoel?” says a deep voice from somewhere below. “Oh, wait, I heard it’s  _ Crowley _ now.” A little giggling follows. “You almost missed my uprising.” 

Crowley flinches, almost loses his balance and gets his feet wet. No one can walk on water; the trick is to imagine it’s solid ground. Once you lose focus, you drown.  _ It’s all imagination _ , heard Crowley one day,  _ none of this exists _ . 

He swears, snaps his fingers and the sandals are in tip-top condition again. The water beneath his feet starts to boil, to bubble up, and finally a big dragon-like face appears from the deep. He meets two big golden eyes with key-shaped pupils.

“Long time no see, Levi.” Crowley smiles and pats the demon on a wide scaly forehead. “How’s it going in there?”

“Cold and wet, as always.” The serpent speaks with a hollow voice. “Pretty dark as well.”

“Feels like home, right? Not like mine, though.”

Crowley smiles and starts to roam around the serpent mindlessly: “Empty and clean. The perfect place.” He shakes his head and finally explodes: “The place is so dead, so repellent, so...”

“Sacred? Not the right place for you to be?” Leviathan shakes the water off her smooth patterned skin and rises above Crowley. The seraph watches her curved body growing out of the water, creating a glare in the rays of the setting sun. “I started in the sea, remember?  _ The sea, like a pot of ointment _ . You could join me there.”

He frowns, processing what the demon just told him; once the realization hits, he gasps: “No! That’s not what I meant!” 

“It’s not that bad once you get used to it.” The serpent smiles, or Crowley assumes that’s what her smile should look like, and wraps herself around his body. “Just assumed you could use good company right now. Heard you were sneaking out of Heaven recently. Got any new friends down on Earth?”

“Not really.” His hands slip on her cold skin. “I just got curious, what all the fuss was about, what was so great about humans. And you know,” he sighs and stares into the distance with a dreamy look on his face, thinking about one human in particular, “everything they say is true. Humans are in fact exciting creatures.”

“Why the sad face, fiery friend?”

“You know the seraphim are not allowed to be on Earth. We shall not be anywhere except the Almighty’s throne room.” He shrugs and drops the lost expression off his face. “She created humans and gave them free will, never bothered with giving it to Her older children.”

“Oh, She did.” Leviathan blinks at him with her third eyelid. “If She didn’t want you to do what you are willing to, why on Earth would She let the rules be breakable at all?”

The seraph turns to her, too puzzled to speak out.

Leaving Crowley to answer the question by himself, the serpent goes back under the sea. And the sea is glowing.

****

The conversation with the demon holds onto Crowley for the long, torturous week. A seed of doubt once planted, will sprout and grow. Even through the stone, and the heart of the seraph bouncing between Heaven and Earth seems to be the fertile soil to it.

Crowley’s been watching humanity for a long time now, but something about Aziraphale feels different. Too familiar, somehow dear to his heart, like he’s seen the face thousands of times before. Like he knows it, each curve and soft line; can recreate it on paper, sketch with coal, carve out of ice.

Everything about him feels different. Different enough to make Crowley dare to want to get closer. In centuries he never had an urge to interfere in humans’ lives, but here he is, dying to get as close as he can before going up in smoke, burning down to the ashes.

And Leviathan’s words give him this little hint of hope.

He flies down to London once again. It's the beginning of December. The weather is harsh, it’s snowing. It’s snowing earlier than it has for years in London. 

As he flies down, he notices Aziraphale leaving the building in a rush. He has a coat on and is all wrapped up in a huge tartan scarf. 

Crowley could simply cover himself up with one pair of his wings, but instead he miracles some human clothes on (black and posh, like his crow wings) and lands in the narrow side street, right around the corner. He doesn’t think it through, it’s a complete spur of the moment.

He rushes to the main street and comes out of the alley just at the right moment to literally run into Aziraphale. The man stumbles, almost falls on the ice, and the seraph instinctively grabs him around the waist.

“Whoops.” Aziraphale grants him the biggest and softest smile of all time. “All this snow, the ice…  _ Good Lord _ , one day it won’t end up well, I am telling you!”

He laughs at himself, still staying pretty close to the seraph. Crowley’s hand is still wrapped around his body, and the seraph could swear, his heart at least misses a few heartbeats, if it doesn’t stop completely. The thickness of the fabric, the roughness of the coat under his hand, it hits him with its reality. The warmth of the human body, he can sense it through all the layers, and it’s pleasant and feels so different from everything he’s so used to. Crowley notices he hasn’t been breathing, when he sees Aziraphale’s breath steaming out of his mouth. __

_ Is that close enough to set a man ablaze? _ He slowly exhales and gently lets the man go.

“Are you alright? Didn’t hit you hard, did I?” asks Aziraphale, fixing his coat.

“I -…er, I am fine, you didn’t.”

They stare at each other for a moment, Aziraphale with a smile that is slowly leaving his face, and Crowley with a confused expression, mixed up with an I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening look.

_ It’s like two stars colliding, nobody comes out alive.  _ Crowley wonders if Aziraphale feels the same way. He gets the silliest  [ déjà vu ](https://context.reverso.net/%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B4/%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9-%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9/d%C3%A9j%C3%A0+vu) just from looking into those blue eyes. It’s like coming back to the place you’ve never been to, and calling it home.

“Do I know you? I am positive I’ve seen your face. I am incredibly good with faces.”

The mild panic wraps around Crowley, and for a real moment he considers leaving Earth in a hurry: just opening his black wings, kicking off from the ground and never ever looking back. And, of course, never actually going back. Curiosity killed the cat, he doesn’t want to be another victim.

“I live here.” He bites his tongue, surprised by how simple lying is these days. It’s too late, the door is open, the wind already comes in. That is the point of no return, so he goes on. “Right in the attic of the opposite building, maybe you saw me one day. I moved a couple of weeks ago. I’ve - er...I’ve seen you.”

Crowley’s words don’t sound convincing to him, but Aziraphale still gives him another smile.

“So, neighbors then.” He wraps the scarf around his chin, only two deep blue eyes are seen above. “Well, thank you for…yhm, saving my life, I guess.”

“You’re very welcome, neighbour,” Crowley answers, trying his best to keep a calm voice. But it’s shaking and he’s sure Aziraphale can also hear it, so he adds: “Mind how you go.”

And he leaves, heads the opposite direction with a quick tempo, making every effort not to run. Crowley feels his heart trapped in his throat and going like a steam hammer. He gets the closest he has ever been to showing the truth about himself - almost can feel wings spreading behind his back.

“Wait!” the man calls out for him when Crowley’s already a few meters away. “What’s your name? Never know when you can use a neighbour these days, right? I’m Aziraphale.”

“I’m...My name is…” He’s spent enough time around humans to know that his angelic name is not very common. What he calls himself these days doesn’t sound like a name to people either _. The pause takes too long, _ shouts his inner voice, and he finally exhales. “It’s Anthony. And - yeah, see you around.”

He turns his back on Aziraphale before he can say anything else and leaves, mumbling “Reallyhavetogo” under his collar. The snowflakes are swirling, slowly falling down, gently covering the city with a white blanket. Once Crowley goes around the corner, he opens his wings and flies up to Heaven. He doesn’t bother to check if there’s anyone around to see it.

****

_ It was a mistake, a big, fat, ugly mistake.  _

Crowley wanders around, nervously glancing at the golden door, the seraphim voices come from behind. The reason for living one day, now he finds the seraph song pretty annoying. He’s doomed to put up with it though, as his visits to Earth are over,  _ obviously _ . Why would he even think that it was a worthy idea in the first place? He has nothing to do among humans, they are just little grains of sand in the hourglass of the universe. Their lives last a second in comparison with stars, their centuries don’t last much more, as compared to the eternity he – Jehoel, the prince of divine presence – has in front of him. How could he forget?

_ It’s all the demonic providence _ . Crowley waves the thought away, pacing in front of the closed door for the hundredth time. _ No good ever comes from down there. _

But the truth is, he liked it. Despite all the awkwardness and confusion, he liked their little collision. He liked the feeling of being noticed in the end. Spying from the building across the street was lots of fun, but the lively interaction felt… divine. 

Crowley freezes when the singing ends and the last of his brothers’ voices fade away. The door creaks open and he gets inside, sneaks behind the backs of his brothers, all the way through the throne room and to the dining area. He allows himself a deep breath, before scanning the room with his warm amber eyes, and sitting down. The endless labyrinth of glass and concrete seems quiet and empty, except for the six seraphim chattering and praising each other around the golden throne.

At some point, and Crowley has no idea how the Heaven it happened, his life here started to feel like something he simply had to endure to return to the place he actually wanted to be. Being a seraph became his full-time job and Earth became a home to his heart. 

This place feels like an abandoned cave, with walls plain and cold, having never felt the warmth of a loving hand. This world of angels with all the gold in their eyes and silver in their hair feels cheap. It feels like a prison cell, and Crowley is serving a sentence. 

Kemuel stares at him, frowning, for a long time before coming closer and starting the conversation in the most casual way he can.

“You seem to be bothered by something, brother,” he whispers.

Crowley fights off the thoughts haunting him and looks up at his brother with a smile appearing on his face. It’s not a hard thing to do - smiling at him - as Kemuel is one of the very few who seem to genuinely care about him here. On second thought, Kemuel may be the only one.

“Naah, I am alright. Just tired. No worries.”

Kemuel nods with the all-knowing smirk.

“Maybe that’s because of all the flying you are doing lately.”

Crowley looks at him, tries to control his face, but doesn't appear to convince his brother.  _ They know!  _ The thought hits him, like a train, the braking distance too short for him to come out alive.  _ But how much do they know?  _

Kemuel laughs and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, no one has to know. This can be our little secret.” He spreads his grey owlish wings and sits down next to Crowley. 

They sit in silence for a little while. Kemuel examines him closely, attentively, and Crowley feels the light tickling his skin, right where the seraph’s look is pointed to at the moment.

“Your wings.” Kemuel finally speaks again, placing his wide palm onto his brother’s shoulder, and turning him around slightly. His voice sounds genuinely concerned, and Crowley hates to hear it. “What happened to them?”

“Nothing,” Crowley retorts, flexing his back muscles, though not hard enough to bring the wings back. “Just like it this way. Maneuverability’s better. You can’t run with those.”

“I see.”

He doesn’t have to look at Kemuel to know exactly the look on his face. A pinch of suspension mixed with a handful of worries, maybe seasoned with doubts. The good thing is it’s only Kemuel who knows about his trips to Earth. And more importantly, he seems to be aware only of the fact that they occur, nothing specific. Crowley feels the muscles of his back relaxing along with realization.

“But tell me, why waste time on Earth? Why  _ that _ city?” Kemuel lets him go. “You could go anywhere, yet you still choose the same place.”

_ Here we go _ , smiles Crowley nervously,  _ my Rubicon _ .

“I like Earth. The humanity, the views.” He shrugs, looking away. “It’s not empty, it doesn’t  _ feel _ empty.” Crowley looks down through the floor-to-ceiling window and allows out one more sigh - like a draught of nostalgia, whistling in the abandoned castle. “Not like Heaven.”

He wants to say more, but knows that his brother won’t understand. None of them will. 

“Be careful,” whispers Kemuel, “you know we’re not supposed to…”

_ Right _ , thinks Crowley and shortly nods. They are not supposed to think about such things: not to compare, nor to question. That’s a human thing - to choose what kind of life they want to live (celestial beings are given orders to follow), and it’s the main reason why Crowley likes humans so much. Watching them make their choices, make their own mistakes, Crowley feels a bit jealous of all the freedom they have. He’s not supposed to, but sneaking out of Heaven again and again he really does want to have a choice.

He hugs Kemuel as an answer, quite sure he won’t be able to form anything meaningful with his words. It lasts for a moment, but when they part, Crowley could swear he sees little tears in his brother’s eyes. Kemuel looks at him with an unsure smile, touching only the corners of his lips.

“Promise me you won’t get too close, Jehoel.”

“Sure. Why would I lie to you?”

Crowley smiles back and quickly gets up from the table. 

_ Well, that went way better than expected _ , he notes, looking around for one of his brothers he has less trouble interacting with. Since he has to spend some time here anyway, it’s better to do it around some interesting company. He picks the one with jay wings, clothed in a bright blue robe, the same shade as the stripes on the top of his wings. Barakiel always has good gossip from his archangel friends. 

But as Crowley walks away, leaving Kemuel alone on the bench, a dark figure appears out of nowhere at Kemuel’s side.

“He lied to me,” Kemuel whispers to the figure, shaken. His eyes are fixed on Crowley’s back as he stops in front of the group of seraphim, laughing around the throne.

“I believe something on Earth is having an adverse impact on our brother.” The deep lifeless voice comes from under a black hood and sounds like thunder rumbling in the distance. Like the last clap of it, to be precise, the one to signal the end of the storm and the beginning of the endless silence. Vague around the edges and pulsing, the figure steps closer to Kemuel.

“I can look after him,” its voice murmurs. “If you want me to.”

“Make sure he doesn’t get in any more trouble.” Kemuel nods, wringing his hands. 

“I certainly will.” 

And a smile, sharp as a knife, appears on the pale face half hidden in the darkness.

****

Crowley lands on the balcony and shivers when his feet go under the snow. 

The flat in the attic magically stays vacant since the day he entered it for the first time. It’s always clean, warm and doesn’t smell like dust, no matter how long he’s away. When he comes in and turns on the light, it almost feels like he’s never left. The small kitchen smells like chicken soup, because that’s the only fragrance which connotes home for him. Not cedar, pine, cherry and morning freshness, but the bloody chicken soup. Crowley sits down at the couch and slowly breathes out.

What is he supposed to do now? What do people do with their free time?

_ Free time _ . Crowley frowns, not really sure if he understands the concept. He’s seen Aziraphale reading, drinking wine, meeting friends for dinner, sleeping, cooking. But what would  _ he _ want to do?

He’s aghast to realize that he has no idea. But he wants to find out.

A knocking sound breaks the flow of his thoughts. He stares at the dark brown door with narrow eyes and gets up. When looked through the peephole, his heart starts to beat faster.

He slowly opens the door wide enough to see a face with big blue eyes and an awkward smile. He also sees an ugly Christmas sweater with reindeers on it that Aziraphale is wearing proudly.

“Hi, neighbor.” His face lights up when Crowley appears in the doorway.

“Er, hi.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt, though I couldn’t help but notice the lights were on.” Aziraphale shrugs and lowers his gaze. “Thought I’d pop in and say hi. You never were around lately, thought you moved out after that embarrassing incident.” 

“What? No.  _ Nonono. _ ” Crowley opens the door wider and steps out. “I’ve been kind of busy for the last week…yhm, ‘ve been flying around a lot.” 

“Oh I see.” Aziraphale’s smile is back and it shines even stronger.  _ Bless this smile _ , thinks Crowley and nervously swallows.“With such a busy schedule, I assume you are unlikely to make it by mine for a drink today? Few friends come over, so…”

“No, that’s alright.” Crowley leans on the wall and folds his arms over his chest. “I’ll come.”

“Perfect. Tickety-boo!” Aziraphale laughs and backs off a little. “See you at seven then, Anthony. Bring some wine.”

Crowley watches the man walking away, closes the door and leans his back on it. 

_ Bless this laughter _ . 

The smile is stuck to his face and his chest is filling up with something warm, calm and totally unknown. He stares at his apartment, having a hard time coming to his senses. 

That’s the thing, he’s compelled toward Aziraphale for some unclear reason, like a moth following the candle. _You know what happens to the moth when it reaches the fire -_ the thought, clear as day, pops out in his head, but Crowley waves it straight away. 

He will just have a look through the keyhole, taste human life a little. He’s got to be back in Heaven in a few hours, this should be enough. This is all his heart desires, right? 

And he promised Kemuel, after all. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Same as episode 3 of the show, this one gets to be sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this part was a real pleasure, my heart just melted. 
> 
> Let me know what you think of it <3

When he knocks on the door a few hours later, Crowley finds himself experiencing anxiety for the first time in his existence. He holds the wine bottle, rolls his feet from heel to toes, and nervously glances at the red door.

_ Is the wine good enough? _ He miracled it up, thinking of the “best wine available”, but never actually checked how good is Earth wine in comparison with Heaven’s. Neither did he check on human savoir vivre.  _ Should I be the one to extend the hand? He’s the host, but I am definitely older.  _

The problem solves itself, when Aziraphale opens the door and pulls him for a hug. He’s soft, warm, smells like gingerbread and wine, and Crowley finds himself enjoying the moment way too much.

“Liber Pater?” Aziraphale gasps and fiddles with the wine bottle in his hands. “It must have cost you a fortune!”

“It must have.” Nods Crowley and steps into the apartment. He recognizes the kitchen, the one he was looking at for such a long time, and it feels weird to finally be inside, on this side of the window.

“You really shouldn’t have!” The man ushers Crowley inside, and puts the wine bottle onto the counter. “But thank you, dear, it will go great with turkey.”

_ Dear _ , echoes in Crowley’s mind. The word goes down his chest, sinks, like a sun warmed rock falling to the bottom of a deep well, without a single splash.

When they enter the lounge, Crowley gets a cold feeling in his stomach. Yes, Aziraphale mentioned there would be some of his friends, he just forgot to specify there would be six of them. 

All of them, however, seem nice. They are smiling, waving at him. Some come towards him for a warm friendly hug, and Crowley notes in his mind what a lovely custom it is. 

As time passes, the tension goes away. So does the wine, the turkey, the various sweets, but the topics of conversation seem to never end.

The seraph listens with great interest, greedily absorbing every single word, watching humans laughing, adding small details, spinning the endless web of fascinating history of their short lives.

_ Bless them, bless all of them, bless this moment _ , the heat of Crowley’s heart can be sensed from miles away.

****

“So we were driving the Western France, and  _ of course _ I couldn’t resist peeking at La Rochelle.” Alice, the woman with blonde hair and a pierced nose, takes the wheel, her eyes are shining with excitement. “Few calls, we’ve got the reservation, and in two days I’ve entered seventh heaven in La Marcelle.” 

“Seventh Heaven?” Crowley smirks. “And what’s so remarkable about it?”

“ _ Gillardeau Mainson _ , my dear friend.” Aziraphale smiles softly and, meeting the confused look on Crowley’s face, explains. “The best place for oysters in Europe. From what I’ve heard, only the ones from Bluff Festival can stand up to those.”

“I’ve never eaten an oyster.” Crowley shrugs and takes a sip of his wine.

“ _ Oh? _ ” Aziraphale puts his glass aside. “You definitely should...No! You  _ have to _ try!”

“Oops, Pandora's box is open. Good luck with that, Anthony.” Tim, the husband of Alice, gets up from the couch and pats Crowley’s shoulder. “I think it’s time for us. Enjoy the temptation, no way you can resist it.”

The seraph gives a startled look at Tim, and the man laughs.

“I am not tempting anyone!” gasps Aziraphale. “I would say it’s more of a promotion,  _ maybe _ \- propaganda. I just want to share things I like with others, how bad is that?”

His question stays unanswered, keeps hanging in the air like a hat forgotten on a hook.

“Anthony, are you leaving too? Need a lift somewhere?” 

Crowley glances at Aziraphale, who is starting to gather dishes and the half-empty glasses carelessly abandoned all over the place, and shakes his head. 

“No, I’m fine. I live in the neighbourhood. Thank you.” 

It’s time to say goodbye, and they are hugging again. Crowley finds himself sandwiched between the two piles of warm clothes, scarves and sweaters, surrounded by slightly drunk and incredibly happy faces. The seraph feels that emotions filling the room are sincere, and he’s infected by them.

_ Let them get home safely, bless them all. _

Finally it’s only two of them in the kitchen. Aziraphale closes the door behind the last guest and turns to Crowley, who stands still in the middle of the room and wrings his pale hands. Aziraphale smiles at the seraph tiredly. 

“You stayed.” A statement, not a question.

“How could I not?” Crowley shrugs, watches Aziraphale rolling his sleeves and getting back to dishwashing, and adds: “Didn’t want to leave you dealing with the cleanup on your own. Let me help.”

They stand in silence. Only the sound of rushing water and plate clattering disrupts it. This kind of quietness doesn’t bother Crowley; it’s not actually empty, it’s filled with life. No need for words or endless singing. The moment praises itself.

“You didn’t like it here, did you?” Aziraphale asks casually and hands Crowley a wet plate, straight away changing the subject. “Thank you for…er, help with this mess, very kind of you.”

“You are very welcome.” He takes the plate and wipes it out with an ivory tea-towel. “And no, I did like it…quite a lot. It was entertaining and educating.”

Aziraphale looks at him with the corner of his eye, hiding the smile.

“You are not often around people, are you?” 

The seraph opens his mouth all ready to start a monologue about him never actually being alone in Heaven, but as he sees a pleased smile on the face ruddy from wine, he just exhales: 

“No, I’m not.” He smirks and puts a plate into the cupboard next to dozens of the same ones – white and shiny. “I have lived for my work, never had a chance to chat about nice things with anyone. It’s changed just recently. That was actually my first free evening in eons.”

“Huh, I’ve met you at just the right moment then.” Aziraphale smiles. He laughs, when Crowley gives him a long confused look. “Oh my god, what am I saying? It must be wine.”

It must be wine indeed, because the seraph doesn’t mind, too. And what’s more, he’s been thinking the same thing. 

_ Right on time _ , the thought crosses his mind, as they continue their adventure with dirty dishes.

****

They sit on the sofa, the one Aziraphale falls asleep on sometimes after a hard day, and it feels strange – talking like this. Crowley looks around, still paying attention to each word, but mostly preoccupied with the surroundings. That’s the table the man has breakfast with a book at, that’s the window he opens when he needs fresh air, that’s the bookshelf full of his treasures. And there’s the balcony the seraph spent days on and it’s pretty visible from where he’s sitting.

He has seen Aziraphale here with a young man another day. Now  _ he _ is the young man on the couch next to Aziraphale, with a glass of red clenched in his hand. The wine tastes nothing like the vintage in Heaven, tastes a thousand times better. It tastes real. Everything around him feels real, has a shape, a texture, a temperature. Everything has a value. And Crowley finds himself slowly running his fingers on every surface he can reach. 

Heaven could be stuffed with objects of every kind, big or small, but it would still feel empty and cold. That’s just how divinity is.

Crowley gets a drop of wine on his finger and runs it around the rim, so the glass makes a sound. He sighs and closes his eyes. Here he is, in this little cozy living room, listening to every single story and laughing at all the jokes Aziraphale is ready to tell him. And he has never felt this way.

“… and this guy calls me the next day and makes an offer!” Aziraphale laughs and casually puts his palm on Crowley’s thigh. “That day I felt like I was going on the right path.”

“The right path,” echoes Crowley, looking at the hand on his leg.

“Okay, it’s your turn now. Share something about yourself with me. The name is all I’ve got.”

Crowley uses a big gulp of wine as an excuse not to answer immediately. Of course, he had thought about this before. He came up with the whole story, but something inside his chest falls at the thought of telling it. He feels it on a physical level, feels that he won’t be able to lie. Not to this blue-eyed (and a bit drunk) man.

“Family business, seven brothers,” he starts, trying not to give away too little, nor too much. “Everyone is supposed to love it, and they do…I mean, I believe they sincerely love what they are doing, but I…” He purses his lips and shakes his head. “I just knew there were other things and places waiting for me.”

Aziraphale looks at him with shiny eyes, which definitely says something about the amount of alcohol he has consumed. Crowley can’t hold the look, so shifts it into his glass.

“I’m not sure if this is it, if there’s no coming back for me, but right now I am here.” A sad crooked smile appears on his lips. “And I am pretty happy with how it’s going so far, to be fair.”

“If it feels right,  _ it is right _ .” Aziraphale gently touches his hip once again before he gets up from the couch. 

He walks to the counter, places his glass on it. Gets a black book with golden letters from the shelf and opens it at a particular page, runs his eyes through the lines. His face lights up when he finds the right piece.

_ “I won't tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much.” _ He sighs and looks up at Crowley, who sits still on the couch and looks back at him – lost, broken. 

Aziraphale goes on _ : “But there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.” _ Aziraphale shuts the book and smiles, reciting the last line from memory:  _ “You have that moment now. Choose!” _

Sometimes words stick in Crowley’s throat, like a fish bone, and now it’s definitely one of those moments. The seraph follows the book as Aziraphale puts it back in its place, and holds himself together with the last ounce of his strength.  _ These are just emotions _ , he keeps repeating to himself,  _ you can control them _ . But he knows so little of it apparently, if he believes he’s the one in charge.

“Sir Wilde knows, doesn’t he?”

Crowley nods, even though he might have no idea who Aziraphale is talking about, but the quote hits the target. His mind, a little blurred and relaxed with alcohol, is slowly turning around the same thought over and over again:  _ Get fresh air and go back home, your absence will be noticed. _

He sighs, Aziraphale turns toward the sound and a deep wrinkle of concern appears on his forehead. The look on his face, with all the feelings laid out right on the surface, makes Crowley smile. He’s meant to leave now, but he simply can’t. _ Once the door is closed _ , he thinks, looking Aziraphale in the eye for an awkwardly long time,  _ the magic is over. _

Aziraphale gives him a little smile, heading to the table in the corner of the room holding a vintage wooden box with Victrola etched into its side. He looks at the shelf above the record player.

“What are we in the mood for?” 

“I am definitely in the mood for more of this.” Crowley nods at the empty glass in his hand and stands up from the couch in one smooth movement, grabbing the bottle from the counter. When Crowley touches the bottle, it refills, maybe not for the first time this evening.

“Didn’t we run out of..?” Az frowns, watching the full glass on the table. 

Crowley lifts the bottle to the level of his eyes and smiles.

“We will in two good gulps.”

Aziraphale turns back and looks at the shelf with vinyl records, each in a sleeve, perfectly lined in alphabetical order. He runs his fingers through them, gets one, looks at it, puts it back.

“Some of them are from my father’s collection,” explains the man, as he hears Crowley getting back on the couch, stretching out on it. “The secret is to keep them in a vertical position, they will last for decades. Fancy hearing the classics?”

“Whatever works for you.” Crowley enjoys the burning on the tip of his tongue and the warm feeling in the chest, later in his stomach, that the wine gives him. “I trust you with this one.”

“He would call you a fool now.” Aziraphale giggles, looks at the shelf again and takes one monochrome vinyl with a man in a bowtie on it. “My father thinks I have a terrible taste when it comes to...well, everything.” 

He puts the vinyl onto the player, it goes spinning, and the first sounds of music shake the pleasant darkness out of the room. He turns to Crowley with a soft smile, warm and relaxed.

“We don’t agree on anything.” Crowley can see a little sadness clouding his crystal eyes, but then Aziraphale takes his glass and sighs. “Except for this song. Nobody understood it like Sinatra did.”

He takes a sip and closes his eyes, starts to dance, slowly swaying to the music. When Crowley thinks this evening can’t get any better, Aziraphale allows himself a deep breath and starts to sing along:

_ It had to be you _

_ It had to be you _

_ I wandered around _

_ And finally found _

_ The somebody who _

_ Could make me be true _

Aziraphale opens his eyes, laughs, noticing the startled look on Crowley’s face.

“Excuse me! I couldn’t resist.” He sits down on the couch next to the seraph and shakes his head. “This song is so...so…”

“Magical?”

“Emotional, the word I was looking for,” Aziraphale nods, looking down at the glass clenched in his hands, and whispers, “but I like yours so much better.”

The velvet almighty voice of Sinatra goes on, touching each and every string of Crowley’s soul (he was not aware of having some of them), and a huge, warm feeling in his heart is growing bigger. It leaks out of his heart, it fills all his veins, his lungs, his skull, and now he consists of it, the way the house is built of bricks. He looks at Aziraphale, who sits with his eyes closed, enjoying the song he might have heard millions of times before.  _ Does it have the same effect on him? _

“Anthony, listen up.” He grabs him on his knee without opening his eyes. “I love this part!”

Crowley looks at the hand, gently squeezing his leg, and Aziraphale starts to sing together with Frank:

_ With all your faults _

_ I love you still _

_ It had to be you _

_ Wonderful you _

_ It had to be you _

_ Of course he doesn’t feel the same _ , thinks Crowley, while his heart sinks deeper and deeper with each line into the lava inside his stomach. With the last “It had to be you” his heart reaches the bottom, sending the last clear thought to his mind, before disappearing for good:  _ This is heaven. Here and now. The place you have to come back to is just an empty cold building filled with beings who have no idea what love is, even though they are instructed to love every living creature out there. _

“I did it again.” Aziraphale smiles, looking at Crowley, and takes his hand away. “I know, my singing is…”

_ “Magical.”  _ Interrupts him Crowley. “Bet you were about to use another word.”

As they laugh, the Victrola hisses. The needle moves and another song, joyful and clearly of a different mood, comes on.

_ There may be trouble ahead _

_ But while there's moonlight and music and love and romance _

_ Let's face the music and dance _

“Not very fond of this one, if I am being honest.” Aziraphale shrugs.

“But your father is, isn’t he?”

Aziraphale looks at Crowley gasping, about to say “How do you know?” and when the realisation hits, they both laugh. Sincerely, freely, it feels like a fresh breath of air. Aziraphale catches the willy teardrop on the cheek and wipes it away.

The moment stretches out, ready to hit the seraph hard, when he lets it go.  _ Bless this laughter,  _ shouts his inner voice. _ Bless this moment. Let his silver laugh jingle forever and ever. _

When the wave goes away, they clink their glasses and soon the wine is gone. Again.

“I hate to bring it up,” Crowley says with a sad smile, fake-yawning in the palm, “but I have to go back.”

“And I hate to hear it.” Aziraphale puts a disappointed mask on, but it doesn’t fit well. One can see the real emotions darkening his eyes. He points at his music collection when Crowley gets up, and asks: “Am I supposed to enjoy these all alone?”

Crowley freezes, caught in the middle of his way to the jacket on a hanger.

“Just kidding!” Aziraphale waves his hand. “Silly me, huh. We’ll figure out something next time.”

_ Next time _ , echoes in Crowley’s head, while he’s putting on his jacket, while they say their goodbyes, while he walks down the stairs. The night is pleasant, the temperature is plunging down and each breath comes out as a little cloud out of the seraph’s mouth. In the fresh cold air he feels a bit less drunk and, spreading his wings in the dark alley, he flies back to Heaven.

****

Of course, there's a next time.

More than one, but still less than enough for Crowley. He comes down to Earth a few days a week, sometimes going straight to the rooftop of the building across from the one with the attic. His life at some points looks like a kaleidoscope: the picture consists of some colorful and bright pieces, interspersed with dull grey. It rotates, scenes change one another, and Crowley’s head is spinning with all the flying back and forth, all the excuses he comes up with for his brothers. He feels like a lonely aspen leaf carried away down the river. 

When Aziraphale gently places a hand onto his arm, Crowley is finally anchored and looks up.

“You seemed distracted, dear boy.” The soft voice pulls him out of his head. “Anything particular on your mind?”

“Not really.” Crowley gives a little smile.

Of course there is, the same old thought troubling his mind day after day. He keeps on counting: up to sixty and that’s a minute, he’s safe to stay down here for another sixty of those. Sometimes he can double it, but then his eyes keep coming back to the clock more often and Aziraphale wonders what’s wrong, what he is so impatient about. He never finds the right words.

“Typing machine,” he states, trying to draw the conversation away. “What’s that about?”

“Pardon?”

“I’ve seen a typewriter on your desk. Do you write on it?”

Crowley noticed the machine on his second visit to Aziraphale’s place. They were sitting at the table, only two of them, and the seraph noticed the desk out of the corner of his eye. It was placed in a dark corner, and an old typewriter rested on top of it. Aziraphale had a computer, an old big bugger turning on for almost twenty minutes and driving the owner crazy, but still a good equipment for a writer. The presence of such an antique thing (he’d seen a woman once typing on the same Underwood around 1930 in Paris) confused the seraph a bit. But he never got the chance to come back to the topic earlier.

“Yes.” Aziraphale smiles, “Dear old friend, got it at a yard sale a while ago. It’s not in a very good shape, the ‘k’ is missing, but it really helps to get in the mood. Most of my stories were typed on it.”

“Show me.” Crowley bumps him with his shoulder.

“Er, sure.” After the short confusion, Aziraphale nods. “I’ve got one of my novels freshly printed, I could give it to you.” He gets up from the couch and starts to search through the pile of magazines. “I would love for you to see it. We could discuss it later…”

“That would be lovely.” Crowley puts his chin on his open palm. “But not what I meant. Read something to me. I would be honored to hear the author narrating his own story.”

Aziraphale freezes for a moment, but then (contrary to what Crowley expected) a soft expression slides onto his face. It takes him some time to find the good manuscript in the drawer. 

_ How many words have you poured out of your heart? _ asks Crowley silently, admiring the man reading through the random lines torn out of the fabric of the story, frowning until his eyes find the right part. With all the wine consumed and all the warmth of this flat, the seraph feels his body slowly melting into the couch. There’s no way he's moving even an inch now.

“This one is rather lovely. If I’m being honest, I’m pretty proud of it. You might like it.”

“I promise, I will.”

Aziraphale takes a chair from the kitchen and places it in front of the shapeless mass that was once called a seraph. He clears his throat, shifts on a chair nervously, turning the pages with shaking hands.

“This one is quite new,” he explains. “No one’s seen it yet. Just a draft…”

“Aziraphale.” The seraph smirks. “Just read it already.”

“Right.”

What happens next is a bit of a miracle. When Aziraphale starts to read, the words are not eager to come out, the voice is trembling. Crowley is almost ready to bestow the tiniest and slightest miracle to make it easier for both of them to enjoy the moment, but right then something changes. 

The story starts narrating itself.

_ “The moonlight cut through the pitch darkness of the mid-autumn night and came through the open window. It cast a sharp ray onto the faded letter, mindlessly abandoned on the ebony wood of the desk, looked through the lines of the clean graceful handwriting on it. The paper, washed out by tears, torn down to pieces by the rough hands of a man working in the field, was thin and see-through. It has been through a lot. The man had it hidden deep in his bosom during the war, warming his old carved-ice heart in the pouring rain at night. He would take it out occasionally, and look at the flowing ink in the lower right corner, where the letter was signed.” _ Aziraphale glances away from the manuscript for a short moment, sees Crowley’s thoughtful face and goes on: “ _ He would press his lips to it. When he closed his eyes, he sensed the fragrance of sandalwood and violet leaves. The letter didn’t smell of the hand that had written it for a long time already. It had been hidden in the bosom right beside the flask of cheap cheesy whiskey for almost a year. It smelled like dust, blood and sweat.”  _ Aziraphale slowly breathes in and recites: _ “And it smelled like hope.” _

He puts the manuscript down and finally looks up at Crowley, waiting for a reaction. For any reaction. He’s dealing with the biggest fear of the writer - the fear of the story not touching a reader’s soul. He lets out a short sigh of relief, when the seraph finally shakes his head slowly. Everything is written down on his sharp face.

“Wow.” He waves his hand vaguely. “ That was...That was intense.”

“Did you like it?”

Crowley opens his mouth to answer the question, but the fragile hope, the bright, but also terrified expression on Aziraphale’s face makes him stop. He’s looking into his eyes and doesn’t like what he sees - there’s that little boy inside, the one who is constantly seeking approval.  _ Am I good enough? Am I doing the right thing? Do I deserve all the love and attention that is given to me?  _ Crowley clenches his teeth, feeling his heart cracking like thin ice above deep water in March. He knows this look, he’s seen it too many times in the mirror back when Heaven actually meant something to him.

“What kind of question is that?” he whispers, a soft voice woven from warm rays. 

He leans toward Aziraphale, still nervously leafing through the manuscript, white pages flying beneath his well-groomed fingers, and touches his knee. 

“Aziraphale.” Crowley swallows the words stuck in his throat. This was harder than he expected. “Your stories have a beautiful voice. I didn’t like it, I loved it. I want to hear the rest of it, to know what it’s about.”

Crowley wishes he could say more. About how beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and how the world appeared to be a better place when described in Aziraphale’s stories. How the human heart is a sophisticated mechanism the seraph is not meant to solve just yet, but he would love to try again and again, with Aziraphale’s gentle hand guiding him through the darkness. 

But what has been said is enough and Crowley gathers the rest of the words together and shuts them in the big dark wardrobe of his chest, waiting for better times.

Aziraphale smiles, and the warmth radiating from him now is reaching Crowley’s skin. He knows something important has just happened. One more step toward each other. And it feels heavenly. 

“More wine?” Aziraphale finally breaks the silence, nodding at the two empty glasses on the floor next to the couch.

“I will take care of it.” Crowley pats his knee once more and gets up. “And you, sir, go on reading.”

The second bottle goes away fast, and they start the third one when Aziraphale finishes the story and gets on the couch next to Crowley. The story, like a Japanese screen in various flower patterns, seems to hide them from the outside world, which sometimes can be a tough place. The room, lit with warm light, feels like their own planet, inhabited just by the two of them. And they enjoy it fully. 

_ This is Heaven _ , Crowley thinks lazily, letting his head rest on the back of the couch while listening to Aziraphale’s voice, soft and singsong.  _ I bless this moment to last. _

And for now, it does. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bless this moment, bless any moment Aziraphale is looking at him like this. 
> 
> (This one got the kiss.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, did I hurt myself with this chapter? Sure I did. Come scream at me in the comments!

“He’s gone. Again.” 

The silence hangs low, wrapping around everything like a poisonous mist. Kemuel looks around and shakes his head, finding every shade of irritation and disapproval on his brothers’ faces. 

He’d talked to Jehoel, hadn’t he? He asked him to behave, and what’s most important, Jehoel promised him he would. Kemuel tried to be a good brother, to cover for him, to make it look like he was absent due to a high-level project. It never worked out well though. The seraphim might have believed it the first two or three times, but the suspicion crawled close pretty quickly and broke his house of cards in one false move.

“Kemuel.” 

“Yes?”

The angel shifts on the bench and gazes at the seraph now speaking. It’s Adnachiel, the shining one, the elder brother. Something in the way he looks at you makes you huddle, like a tiny mouse before its meeting with the claws of a golden eagle. The colorful plumage of his wings, opened widely behind his back, shines like gold as he approaches.

“Any news on your brother?”

“ _ Our _ brother,” Kemuel corrects more instinctively, then on purpose.

“Not sure anymore, with all the secret missions.”

“Don’t.” Kemuel smiles warmly. Then he shrugs and looks back, hoping to see the familiar redheaded figure entering the hall. But the door remains closed. “I’m sure there is a simple and logical explanation that I’m just not aware of.” 

“There is,” sounds a low voice. It seems to come from every direction at once, crossing the room like a cold northern wind, making everyone shiver.

“Azrael.” Kemuel comes up from the crowd and walks in firm and quick steps toward the dark shadow. “What are you doing?”

“You may not see it right now, but I am helping a flawed soul.”

“You had to  _ keep an eye _ on him, not to  _ spy, _ ” Kemuel whispers with his teeth clenched. 

“I did it with the kindest intentions. Besides, it was you who asked me not to let him get in any more trouble, didn’t you?”

Kemuel steps aside, letting the dark figure slip into the center of the crowd. Like a cloud of black smoke, his smile hidden in the shadows cast by his hood, Azrael speaks.

And as he does, Kemuel feels regret, bitter and aching, crowding his mind.

“There is one particular reason our brother is not with us anymore,” murmurs Azrael. “He traded us for humanity. For a human, actually.”

In the frightened whispering that floods the room, one voice is missing. Kemuel, shaken, stares at his hands. He clenches and slowly opens his fists, nails leaving white half-circles on the pale delicate palm. 

“You think we can  _ fix the issue _ before the rumors spread around?”

Kemuel turns to Adnachiel, still with excellent posture and a predatory glare in his eyes. 

_ It’s always been only about the reputation, hasn’t it? _ From the very beginning, when there were still eight of them, all Heaven cared about was its reputation: even arrows on military-style trousers and the cleanliness of its corridors, the cold perfect harmonies sung by its choir. Those millennia didn’t change anything. 

****

At midnight, when the streets are empty and silent again, the back door creaks open. Two dark figures rush outside. One has a white shining smile, like a guiding star glaring in the night, and the other has intricate shadows at its back, reminding the one with a powerful imagination of a pair of wings.

They reach the empty street, giggling about some nonsense one of them just came up with. The snowflakes whirl around.  _ Like a swarm of tiny white angels _ , Crowley thinks with a smile, asking himself if an army of tiny angels can actually be called a swarm in any circumstances. 

The night feels good, the young moon hangs low and the starry sky above looks like a huge cozy blanket somebody has thrown over the sleeping city to warm it up.

Aziraphale offers to walk him home, and Crowley doesn’t mind. Every additional minute together feels godsent, and who is he to say no? Not an idiot, that’s for sure.

They walk shoulder to shoulder, shivering as the warmth leaves their bodies. Crowley’s heart is an ice cube, slowly melting in a clenched warm palm.

_ “Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!” _ shouts Aziraphale, lovingly gazing into the sky stretched out above their heads.

_ Bless this night, bless all of the stars and bless his shining eyes pointed toward them,  _ Crowley exhales. He shifts his gaze from the imperfect but lovely view (the high forehead, the snub nose, the soft lips) to the sky up above, whispering the sweetest dreams in humans’ ears.

“Nicely said. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with the truth.” Crowley smiles, and when he returns his gaze to Aziraphale, the man is looking back at him, inviting an explanation. Crowley shrugs. “You can’t see stars from Heaven. God created them just for humans to admire. You should be honored to walk under them and - enjoy every single one.”

“I do!” Aziraphale laughs. “But why would God create the most amazing thing for humans only?”

“Because - She knew only humans would be able to appreciate it, as it should be.” 

Aziraphale freezes for a moment, looking Crowley in the eye, searching for answers there. And the answers are there, all in an open book, but he simply is not yet ready to read them.

“You say some odd stuff like God is a woman and somehow make it sound truthful.” He hides his chin under the jacket’s collar and shivers. Crowley opens the door to the building and they go inside. For some ineffable reason the seraph is happy his apartment is not on the ground floor.

They walk up the stairs in silence. It’s been a lot of talking tonight, more than the seraph’s had in eras. People do like talking, that’s for sure, and this particular human has mastered the skill just perfectly. Crowley can’t blame him; talking about things you love can spiral out of control pretty easily. 

When they stand in front of the brownish door on the top floor, the silence cracks. The corridor in the attic is pretty narrow, and they’re forced to stand close together, almost pressed to each other.

_ Bless this moment, bless any moment Aziraphale is looking at me like this. _

“I-...” starts Crowley, fiddling with the keys in his hands. “Thank you once again...er, for every-...”

He’s not meant to finish the sentence, as Aziraphale crosses the distance between them in one step, closing the gap between their lips. The kiss tastes like wine, and feels like ice on Crowley’s skin, cold but still burning. He would let it burn forever.

Crowley feels Aziraphale shivering, and at the same time senses the heat coming off his skin in waves. His eyes are closed but he could swear that through his eyelids he sees the soft light coming off him. Crowley holds out his hand, but it never reaches the target.

“Oh my - ” Aziraphale breathes, taking a step back. “Oh my god, I am so terribly sorry, Anthony... I shouldn’t have.”

He turns his back on the seraph and runs down the stairs, leaving Crowley cold and speechless. 

He stands in the corridor, trying to call Aziraphale back, but his mouth is dry like a desert and his vocal cords aren’t under his control anymore. He stares at the keys in his hand for a while, before opening the door and entering. 

_ The time!  _ Crowley curses silently when he realizes he spent almost the whole night on Earth. He breathes in and out, eyes closed, feeling his heartbeat gradually return to normal.

“Hello, brother,” hisses Crowley and opens his eyes, turning the lights on.

“If the mountain will not go to the man…” Kemuel shrugs and gives him a friendly smile, which is gradually replaced by a scared expression. “Please don’t make a scene.”

“I won’t.” Crowley puts the keys onto the dresser and walks past his brother to the kitchen. “Fancy drinking something?”

“You don’t actually mean it, do you?” 

“Oh, I surely do.” Crowley opens the fridge and gets himself some juice (which materialized inside just a moment ago.) He pours it into a glass and adds in a singing voice:  _ “The waters of living rivers can no longer quench my thirst.” _

He and Kemuel sit down on opposite sides of the longish kitchen table. 

“Come on, spill it. I would never believe you left Heaven’s walls just to pay me a visit.”

Kemuel stares at him with his deep brown unblinking eyes.

“Our brothers and I have been worrying about you.” He sees the wordless question on Crowley’s face, nods and corrects himself. “ _ I’ve _ been worrying, they were mostly mad. Your absence has been noticed. They know you come down here.”

Crowley shakes his head and speaks harshly, making a point: “Nothing you can say will change my mind. I am not coming back with you _. I am making a choice _ now.”

“And what do you choose, brother?” Kemuel purses his lips. “This  _ human _ ? I can see the red string linking the two of you, but it is as short as this mortal’s life. You can’t seriously consider it...”

They look at each other for a while, before Crowley blinks and exhales. The bright and warm feeling inside his chest is gone; its place has been taken by emptiness, which accompanies Heaven and its inhabitants all over the world. 

In response to his changed mood, the apartment loses its cozy smell and gets that disgustingly fresh fragrance of the tamarind tree. 

“Brother, please, come with me…” 

_ Don’t make it any more difficult for both of us _ , Kemuel almost says, but bites his tongue right on time.

Crowley slowly shakes his head again. 

“A choice itself is a good enough deal. I am tired of being what I was told I am a very long time ago. I’m tired of obeying without a single question. Maybe I was a seraph at Her feet one day...” He feels his throat closing up and his voice going down completely at the end of the sentence: “...but I just am not anymore.”

Kemuel watches him with clear awe painted in his eyes, and anger wakes up inside Crowley’s heart. It is bubbling inside him, boiling slowly, as this look of awe is not something he needs. 

He could use a brother right now, someone to silently pat him on the back, tell him it is all going to be fine. Somehow. 

“And who are you, if not a  _ singer of the eternal _ , Jehoel?” 

Crowley’s world is ending, the walls are coming down on him, as he says the words: “I am just about to find out.”

He stares down at the glass in his hands with a sad and hurt smile. When he looks up, Kemuel is gone. The balcony door is open and the white curtains are swaying in the breeze.

Through the window the seraph sees Aziraphale’s shadow wandering around nervously, chaotically, stopping for a moment and then continuing its motion from one room to another. Crowley’s glad he's not the only one to meet this morning restless.

****

It takes a couple of hours for Crowley to finish separating the wheat from the chaff, isolating his own thoughts from the chorus of his brothers’ preaching. The loudest is his own inner voice, shaped by the fear of punishment and the desire to obey, to receive the Almighty’s ineffable love. 

It mumbles:  _ Your voice is the most beautiful in the choir, no wonder it’s the leading one. For all eternity you were Her favourite son, what if staying here longer angers Her? What if She decides you don’t deserve Her infinite love anymore? How cold will it be living in a world without Her sight pointed on you? What if you fall? What does Hell smell like? Bet you anything it smells nothing like chicken soup, nothing like cider and pine, nothing like a fresh, crisp morning on Earth. _

Defeated by troubled thoughts, Crowley leans his forehead on the window glass and slowly breathes in the cold air of the young winter morning. He looks at the intricate pattern drawn by the frost at night - beautiful, simple and perfectly symmetrical - and a smile of hope curves his lips. 

This world is constantly changing, spinning around, growing bigger and stronger. There’s nothing still about it, every moment feels different, every second is different. Even though humans forget - or refuse - to notice it, their lives are full of unpredictabilities and surprises. Once you are bored by the usual route home, you simply take another turn, and a whole new world is your oyster.  One may think that God Herself shapes each human destiny, but does She really have nothing better to do?

On the other hand, once a seraph gets bored by his destiny, he’s labeled “a rebel” and gets kicked out of Heaven the very next moment.

Crowley exhales. His breath mists the glass in front of him. 

Windows in Heaven don’t do this, and the detail hits him like a ruthless bat in a heavy hand. Maybe there’s a place for him outside Heaven after all.

****

He runs out of the apartment, out of the building, leaving heavy footprints on the fresh snow. He crosses the yard, goes up to the top floor and stops right across from Aziraphale’s red door, caught by one more unpredictability.

“Azrael.” says Crowley under his breath. “Two brotherly visits in one day? Doesn’t seem right.”

“Missed me?” The darkness trembles.

“How... Why are you here?” The seraph takes one more step and freezes when it all falls into place. “If Kemuel asked you to have a word with me, you’re wasting your time…”

“I know,” says the shadow in the corner of the room, and Crowley watches a white bony hand pull back the hood. “All willful and relentless, you aren’t changing your mind, are you? She called you a  _ fiery one _ for a reason.”

Crowley frowns. He hasn’t heard anyone call him that for decades, at least.

The dark silhouette steps out of the shadow and opens his vulture wings. Almost two times wider than Crowley’s, the wings block Aziraphale’s door. 

The black eyes that pierce him like arrowheads are deep. Unlike Crowley’s (warm and cognac-brown) they are cold. They don’t reflect the light, but instead, like the black holes, they absorb it.

“I don’t need  _ you _ .” Azrael’s not blinking, nor moving any muscle, which makes his face look like a porcelain mask. “You can have all the fun the Earth has to offer. I came here to simply do my job. To deliver the message.” 

“What?” Crowley has a hard time coping with his emotions and definitely fails to express them properly. His mind is overcrowded by thoughts of different origins, most of them troubled. __

But at some point Crowley understands. The easiest answer is usually the correct one. And once it hits him, the seraph staggers. 

“You can’t have  _ him _ .” Crowley shakes his head in disbelief. “He’s so young and innocent, so full of life. Humans can live a long time these days, sixty years at least. You can’t have him  _ now! _ ”

Fists clenched, he comes closer to Azrael, still shaking his head with emotion. “He has nothing to do with what is going on between me and Heaven, brother. It’s  _ me _ disobeying, you can’t...”

“It’s nothing personal, Crowley.” For the first time Azrael uses his chosen name (that’s when the seraph knows it’s all about him in the end) and shrugs.  _ “It’s just death.” _

The very next second the corridor is empty, and the subtle scent of lily is the only thing indicating the angel’s presence. Crowley moves toward the red door slowly, like he’s moving through water, and turns the knob, not sure if it was open to begin with or if he simply miracled it to unlock.

****

Something dark and heavy settles in the apartment, the air is dense. When Crowley enters, the oppressive and tense atmosphere pours onto him, like lime honey. The seraph feels an increasing pressure on his chest as he peeks into the bedroom, takes a passing glance at the undisturbed sheets and continues on, nervously clenching and opening his fists. He sees the top of Aziraphale’s head, crowned with a wreath of silver curls, behind the couch cushion. The man doesn’t move, doesn’t turn his head toward the door as Crowley walks in. Doesn’t grant him a soft smile. 

_ For God's sake...Please, let him be alright. _

The darkness lifts as the room slowly fills with fragile morning light. Crowley takes a final step and drops to his knees beside the man. The seraph reaches out to his cheek and gently caresses it. 

For the second, nothing happens, and his heart misses two beats. 

Then Aziraphale opens his crystal blue eyes. It takes him a while to come to his senses. He blinks a few times, trying to focus his sight on Crowley’s face.

“You’re alive.” Crowley clings to the couch and sighs with relief, repeating, “You’re alive…”

“Anthony? What are you..? Did I forget to close the door again?” Aziraphale pulls the blanket up to his chin. “What time is it?” When he notices the pallor of the seraph’s face, and his messy red hair, his voice goes soft. “For Heaven’s sake, what happened to you?”

“Nothing. Definitely nothing worth mentioning.” Anthony rests his forehead against the fabric of the couch and closes his eyes.  _ Bless him, let nothing bad ever happen to him. _ “The way you left yesterday…”

“About that...Right.” Aziraphale interrupts him, still hiding in the fort of warm fabric. “I’m terribly sorry, Anthony. I shouldn’t have. It was the wine…” He sighs. “It was inappropriate and I am sincerely sorry.”

“You should be,” Crowley murmurs.

“Pardon?”

“You should be sorry,” he repeats, a smile appearing on his lips. He looks up at Aziraphale’s face, feels a vein thrumming at the side of his neck, and lets out a heavy breath.

There are many things Crowley wishes he could bring up now. 

_ Look, here are my wings, all six of them _ , he would say, _ I will take you to Heaven with these if you just ask me. I know you never will, you like it down here too much, you like Earth. Just as I do. You taught me to love it with your stories, showed me the beauty of the world through your eyes. _

It’s not something he can talk about. Not now, at least. But there’s one particular thing he owes Aziraphale. He gathers his strength and starts with a shaking voice:

“What happened last night, that was a surprise.” He glances at the man’s face without a single blink, his eyes constantly moving, trying to discern any emotion, any unsaid words. “Sure, it was wine...Extraordinary amount of it, actually, but the truth is... I didn’t mind it happening.”

_ I’m not lying _ , Crowley thinks with amazement. Maybe for the first time he feels (not that he knows) what he needs to do. It’s coming right from the bottom of his heart, and he slowly opens the cage, letting the feelings go.

“You should be sorry.” Crowley repeats and gently squeezes Aziraphale’s hand. “Not about what you did, but for running away and leaving me on my doorstep in the middle of the night.”

Aziraphale frowns. This is the first real emotion Crowley’s seen since the man woke up, and the more Crowley speaks, the more tense Aziraphale’s face gets.

“If you stayed, I would have said I didn’t mind it.” Crowley sucks in a breath. “I mean, kissing you again.”

The world outside suddenly gets noisy: the crowd chatters, the car horns beep, the bell on the chapel nearby is tolling. But none of it exists for them at this point.

“Good thing I didn’t stay then,” Aziraphale says quietly, his eyes pointed down at his hands. 

The seraph laughs nervously, surprised, not sure if he heard correctly. Is this one of those human jokes he is not meant to understand? 

When Aziraphale looks up at him (just for a second, but it’s more than enough for Crowley’s heart to squeeze in pain), his eyes - bright and clear before - are dark blue. What makes it so much worse is that they’re full of sorrow. The man opens his mouth for a moment, but not a single word leaves his tongue, so he closes it again, an ancient truck full of broken bones. 

“I don’t understand.” Crowley clears his throat and slowly crawls onto the couch at Azirapahale’s feet. “I…”

“We barely know each other, Anthony.” Aziraphale cuts him off and looks away. “We had a pleasant evening, a lovely chat, too much wine probably. But that’s it.”

One more thing the seraph has never experienced (and definitely was never meant to) was his heart cracking and shattering into pieces. Crowley wants to tear it out of his chest and throw it away, bury it under the mud flats.

He gets up and stands by the window, glancing at the city with the irritating tears clouding the view. 

_ I’ve known you for months _ , thinks Crowley,  _ I know the song that cheers you up, I know where you go when you feel a bit down, I’ve listened to all your stories and _ **_I know you_ ** _. I have no idea how that happened, but I knew you long before I met you, knew you before I heard you singing back then. _

“Ask me any questions. I will tell you what you want to know. Anything.”

Crowley hears the man getting up from the couch and the blanket softly falling onto the floor. 

“That’s not the point, dear. As I said before, I am sincerely sorry. I shouldn’t have gone for that kiss, nor should I have left you to wonder for the whole night. I ask you to accept my apology.” 

_ Dear _ , echoes in Crowley’s mind.

Aziraphale gently touches Crowley’s elbow and the seraph barely keeps his scream inside. The skin under Aziraphale’s hand burns, blisters. He’s vulnerable now, without any armor, any hardened shell. 

And each word gets under his skin like a red-hot needle.

The pain is against his seraph nature and if he could, he would definitely miracle it away. Instead, he shakes off Aziraphale’s hand from his shoulder and heads to the door. He slams it closed behind him, takes a few steps and freezes on his way to the stairs.

_ Broken-hearted it is then _ , crosses his mind right before he hears footsteps in the apartment behind him. He puts all his energy into one clear message:  _ Stay back.  _

Crowley feels tears slowly dripping down his face, as he opens his wings and kicks off the ground.

And he never looks back. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Days alternate with nights, the story goes on.   
> And then Heaven interrupts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s an art for this chapter: https://sinnabonka.tumblr.com/post/613592327224754176/oh-mia-ugly-i-finally-got-brave-enough-to
> 
> I would love you till my last day on earth for sharing any info about this fic!

Aziraphale freezes with a hand held out to the doorknob, but never touches it. Some mysterious force doesn’t let him open the door and follow Anthony outside, even though he wants to. He doesn’t need to, that’s for sure, but he wants to run after him anyway. 

_ You just shoved it into his face, that you regret the kiss. Doesn’t matter if that’s true, but that’s the truth you gave him. What will you do if you go after him? What would even make sense? _

It’s an early hour. Aziraphale’s thoughts tangle up together, like lazy snakes in a dark cavern. He goes back to the couch and curls up under the blanket, which he picks up from the floor. He falls into the unpleasant dream with the black eyes and vulture wings involved. 

****

Aziraphale keeps himself busy for the whole week: he meets with a few friends, works on a draft he has to finish before Christmas, takes the longest books he can think of and sinks into them - not smoothly and steadily, as he likes to, but drastically and quickly, like a poor fella with a cinderblock tied to his feet, tossed into the harbor. And it helps, so the week goes fast.

“Won’t your neighbor come over?” asks Alice on Friday, when there’s already a second bottle of fine wine breathing on the counter. “Anthony, right? Nice guy.”

“No, I’m afraid he won’t.” Aziraphale tries his best to squeeze the smile out of himself. It clearly turns out badly, because Alice reads him like an open book, and gasps. He sighs and goes on. “We are kind of in the hard place now. Not sure if it’s even fixable.”

“What on Earth did you do, angel?” She smiles at him and pats his knee. 

He turns the glass around in his hands, weighing the pros and cons of this conversation, and shakes his head. He feels like if he opens his mouth, all his emotions will just spill out and spatter on poor Alice. Instead he takes a sip and longingly looks at the illuminated window in the opposite building.

“Whatever it was, Az, I’m sure it will be fine.” Alice grabs his hand and squeezes it gently. “You’re the one always telling us that things _ sort of sort themselves out _ anyway.” She giggles and takes a quick sip.  _ “If it’s meant to be, it will be.” _

“Wow.” Aziraphale bursts into laughter. “I was expecting some Murakami or Shakespeare quote. Paulo Coehlo, in a pinch. But darling, you’ve chosen...”

“It says it all, that’s what matters,” Alice interrupts.

And Aziraphale couldn’t agree more. She hugs him tightly on her way out, leaving him in the lonely company of a half empty bottle of wine. When he closes the door behind her and turns on his record player, it’s almost midnight - the perfect time for overthinking and poor-decision making.

Aziraphale sits on his couch with a glass of wine and a blanket warming his knees. He looks at the shadow in the window of the apartment across the street. The lights are on for the first time in a week and his thoughts keep coming back to the way things ended with Anthony.

The Victrola hisses, something in the mechanism clicks, and the next song begins. Aziraphale recognises it from its first chord, and his heart, not in the right place already, sinks.

_ It had to be you _ . Sinatra’s voice is soft, but Aziraphale feels like he’s being strangled with bare hands. The desperate need to escape his own mind urges him to dress and get outside. He needs a gulp of cold air to empty his head right now, so he runs away without turning the music off.

The night sky is cloudy and not a single star can be seen. The air is clear and refreshing, and little patches of sludgy snow are shining white under his feet. The magical feeling that the backyard had just a week ago, slowly fades away.

_ No more miracles _ , thinks Aziraphale,  _ God created stars only for humans to see, and here I am looking down at dirt. _

He slowly breathes in, then out, and closes his eyes. He feels almost alive when the frost starts to bite his cheeks gently. A single snowflake lands on his forehead, and melts.

Standing in the shadowy yard, Aziraphale thinks that if this was a film, he would be smoking right now. He doesn’t smoke, just stands there, looking up at the top floor. Before he knows it, his feet are bringing him in and up the stairs. 

Aziraphale wishes it all ended up with the smoking and a sleep (even though he doesn’t sleep well lately), instead of whatever is about to happen in a moment. He knocks on the door, and his heart corks out. For the moment the world is silent, and then Aziraphale hears footsteps approaching.

The door opens and the smile (tense and trembling) disappears from Aziraphale’s face. He makes himself lift his jaw when his mind returns to normal.

“Hi. Can I help you?”

“Hello. Hi.” He swallows. “Yes, I think you could. I’m looking for a friend. He’s living here.”

“Wrong room, lad.” With a slight but noticeable irritation, the woman shakes her head and reaches out to the knob, intending to close the door before his nose.

“No! Please!” Aziraphale holds it open. “He definitely lives here, m’am. His name is Anthony.”

“No Anthony here,” the woman hisses back. “Good night.”

“Maybe he left a note?” Aziraphale feels his eyes getting misty. “A number?”

“I’m afraid not, laddie.” She shrugs and goes on: “We have been living here for a few days, and I am afraid no one was around for almost a year before. Power issues, they say.”

Aziraphale gets his hand away from the knob, letting the new tenant finally close the door, and slowly walks toward the stairs.

_ That’s it,  _ thinks Aziraphale, bent under the weight of his own heart.  _ You did it, you lost the chance to explain yourself.  _ It would feel like a slow-motion, if his thoughts were not rushing around, bamping one another.

He falls asleep on the couch, as he always does when he’s upset, but this time there’s no angel to guard his dreams. There’s no seraph to bless his night and save him from the darkness upon him.

****

In the morning Aziraphale doesn’t remember the nightmare, but the cold feeling nests inside his chest. The feeling powers him up, feeds the manuscript he’s working on. Aziraphale frees that part of his identity, the part that enjoys laying out words like beads on canvas, stringing them one by one on a needle and embroidering the beautiful stories, created by his mind. 

He’s adrift and the words come out easily from his heavy heart. Days alternate with nights, the story goes on.

Aziraphale leaves the flat occasionally to get something to eat, to buy a newspaper, to take out the trash. Once he sees a slim, black, redheaded figure around the corner. He doesn’t even get a chance to think it through; the figure disappears in the crowd the very same second Aziraphale starts to go chasing after it. He stands in the middle of the street (passing horns honking) and looks around, surrounded by dozens of faces, none of them familiar.

****

His days consist mostly of cups of tea cooling beside his computer, his nights consist of Sir Elton John on repeat or whatever he’s in the mood for (mostly blue and heart-breaking tunes). One thing stays unchanged and it’s the sound of his fingers tapping out the uneven rhythm of life on his keyboard. 

“Alright, kid, I know something happened.” Aziraphale hears his father’s voice on the phone one late evening, when he gets back home. He waits, but the man doesn’t say a single word more.

“ _ What _ happened?” Aziraphale smiles nervously, trying to make his voice sound cheerful. 

“Alice called. And if this young woman made up her mind to call me, there’s indeed a problem.” The man coughs and the air whistles inside his lungs. “Fire away, lad.”

_ I’ve got a hole in my chest, and I did it myself. Got too scared, too close, ripped out the heart with my own bare hands.  _ Aziraphale may want to say that, but he never does. He wouldn’t dare.

“It’s absolutely tickety-boo. I have no idea, why on Earth would Alice…”

“She complained about you not answering your phone. Never actually calling back.” The man has several coughing fits in a row and goes on after catching his breath. “What did you do again?”

“Dad…”

The conversation doesn’t lead anywhere, as is usually the case. The only thing they agree on is the need to call Alice ( _ the young woman doesn’t deserve to be treated like this. She is a friend, after all.)  _

Aziraphale throws in the occasional “sure” and “alright”; he could just remain silent, and it would change nothing.

When Aziraphale puts the phone down, he feels empty, all his strength being pumped out.

He finally calls Alice, but when the conversation gets to the point when he’d usually invite her and Tom for dinner, he says a soft goodbye and hangs up. He’s not ready to welcome anyone again. Whenever he thinks of anything reminding him of that damned evening, his heart squeezes. He thinks that if it was a lemon, he would never be out of lemonade these days.

Every morning, no matter how hard it is, Aziraphale still looks at the balcony of the apartment across the street, clinging to the hope of seeing the redheaded figure again. It's always empty, as it was the day before and the day after. Aziraphale makes himself get back to his computer and start typing again. 

****

Around midnight, his fingers start to move slower. Each word is hard-earned, and his eyelids get so heavy, even Atlas would have a hard time shrugging under the weight of them. Aziraphale battles, but falls asleep at the table with his head awkwardly placed over his crossed hands. His breath is calm and even. The only thing breaking the silence is the ticking of the clock.

He feels the cold touch on the cheekbone and opens his eyes. It’s pitch black and before his eyes can get used to it, he turns his head around, squinting in the darkness. It feels like midnight, and the world is empty and silent. The smell of lilies and wet feathers make Aziraphale think of summer mornings after the rain, not about the mid-December night, shrouded in frost. He gets up and something crunches under his bare feet.

“Good Lord, what’s that?” He takes a few more steps before something pierces his foot. “Dash it!”

His eyes have adjusted to the darkness and now he sees the floor covered with bones; bits of bone scattered all over the place. And it isn’t his room anymore. Aziraphale stands in the middle of the cavern filled with milky moonlight and lots of tunnels going off it. He feels blood running from the wound on his foot. He wonders how much of it stays on the rodent bones, how much of it the sand takes.

Aziraphale has a strong feeling that everything happening is not real.  _ It feels real _ , though he steps onto the dusty floor with his injured foot without any concern, as something inside him screams that it’s just a dream.  _ You better be right _ , thinks Aziraphale, entering the darkest tunnel. 

“You can’t scare me,” he whispers, feeling something moving just inches away from his face.

“Never intended to, my wingless friend,” answers a husky disembodied voice and Aziraphale feels a hot breath on his temple. The next second he hears the sigh and the voice goes on. “Where are my manners? Poor humans, you cannot see in the dark…”

Aziraphale hears fingers snap and a blinding white light explodes. It floods the cave like quicksilver, reaches every dark corner, shapes every bone on the floor, every rock, each ruined mossy trunk in a creek. Aziraphale can’t see at first, it aches to open his eyes and his vision is blurry. He spreads his hands, trying to find an additional point of contact with the surrounding world.

“Let there be light,” whispers the voice. 

It is moving, now they are a few meters apart. Aziraphale turns his head toward the source of that voice. When his eyes finally adjust to the brightness, he gasps with excitement mixed with fear, gradually rising inside his chest. 

The first thing he sees is a pair of ebony vulture wings - they are not completely black, the feathers are brown and ivory along the edges. They are wide open behind the back of a slender silhouette wearing a black robe. Its ashen face is hidden in the shadows of its hood, only the pointy chin and pursed lips can be seen. The man (or whatever this creature is) turns to Aziraphale, and the shadow shifts, revealing the top half of his face.

“Who are you?” Aziraphale asks with a trembling voice and backs into the corner. 

“They call me different names.” The man tilts his head and comes closer to Aziraphale. His movements are so smooth, he looks like he’s floating toward him. “But the name doesn’t change the substance. I could call you Azazel, but it would not make you the seducer of mankind, would it?” He stares Aziraphale directly in the eye and his white thin lips curve a little. “I am Azrael. What am I, you could ask…”

“The angel of death. I know the story.” Aziraphale slowly breathes in the air, which for some reason has a slight sweet taste, and it reminds him that this is nothing but a dream. It helps him to build his courage and look up. “Am I dead?”

“Not yet, dear child. The third message has to be delivered beforehand.” Azrael touches Aziraphale’s chin with long white fingers, lifts his head a little, examines his features with non-blinking black eyes. “I, the collector of souls, notify you, Aziraphale, your death is near. Just around the corner.”

They keep on looking at each other, and Azrael sees a clear question in Aziraphale’s eyes. There are plenty of those and all of them get on his nerves. 

_ Questions, questions, questions, they are nothing but trouble,  _ thinks Azrael, slowly moving his hand down to the man’s neck,  _ It started with a question and it will, eventually, end with one.  _

As his fingers touch the pulsing vein on Aziraphale’s throat, he licks his lips.

“My fiery brother always had a temper.” The angel circles his fingertips on Aziraphale’s skin. “Never had enough, always looking for answers. He always had a special place beside Her throne, a very special place in the Almighty’s heart. But this time, he won’t get what he wants.” He smirks and drags his nails against Aziraphale’s soft skin until his fingertips get even whiter. 

_ It’s just a dream _ , Aziraphale brings back the thought. His neck hurts and the first drop of blood appears on it. The hand gripping his throat feels too real, the cold touch burns his skin.

“There has to be a mistake, I don’t know what you are talking about.” He swallows and backs away a little further, ready to press himself into the wall.  _ Wake up, wake up already _ , runs in his mind. “I don’t know your brother, I never intended to cause any trouble... _ Please! _ ”

“You may not want to cause any trouble,” Azrael squeezes his hand harder on the weak throat of the human, “but you do. You are the only reason Crowley keeps on coming back to that stupid place in the attic. We can't afford one more brother of ours to fall for humans.” The angel shakes his head. “Even if this time it’s because of loving one.”

The bright fire of realization lights up Aziraphale’s eyes. Different thoughts rush inside his head like a swarm of angry bees, stinging him with white flashes on his temples.  _ The attic. The flames in hair. Brothers. Her throne. _

Aziraphale tries to breathe in, he needs a big gulp of air. He wants to drink it like cold water from a well poured into a clay jug on a hot summer day, but the grip on his neck is getting stronger.

He feels himself slowly fading away, losing consciousness. He knows that after the dream is over, he will hardly remember a single thing about it. And Aziraphale clings to the word that is the only thing that makes sense right now:  _ Crowley, Crowley, Crowley. _

The lights go off and he sinks into the darkness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, guys, this is NOT a false alarm, we are getting closer to a REALLY angsty place. I hope you like this story so far!
> 
> You will hate the next chapters, but the last one... oh man, it’s gonna be pure love! 
> 
> Come say a word here or on tumblr @sinnabonka


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Aziraphale. Something bad is about to happen to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, oh boy. We are coming closer. This is gonna hurt.
> 
> Come scream at me in the comments,

Azrael watches the faint human shadow melt under his hand, and shakes the cold mist off his sleeves until it disappears completely. His black dead eyes point toward the clear night sky, not a single star in it. With one flap of his powerful vulture wings, Azrael flies up.

Heaven meets him with its usual quietness, only the silvery voices of his brothers breaking it; he follows the sound to the throne room. The seraphim sing around the empty throne and Azrael makes a huge effort to stop himself from thinking how meaningless it is.  _ Whom do you praise, brothers? Isn’t She gone? _ slips through his mind. 

When he enters the hall, all eyes are pointed at him. All except one pair. 

Azrael gestures at a seraph with wheat-blond hair and waits outside the door. The young angel nervously glances at Crowley whose back is to the door, preoccupied with the view. His reflection in the window glass is paler than ever, making the flame of his hair shine even brighter. Maybe he notices them leave, sees their retreating forms in his peripheral vision, but just can't bring himself to tear his solemn gaze away from the human world below.

“How is he?” Azrael asks quietly, nodding at Crowley. “Any better?”

“Not really.” Uriel tucks a golden lock behind his ear and shrugs. “He’s singing along, he sits with us at the table, but I am not sure if I’ve heard a word from him since he got back.” 

“Fraternizing with humans never turns out well.” Azrael takes Uriel by the shoulder and leads him further from the throne room. “The message is delivered, now it’s your time to step in.”

“I still don’t understand.” Uriel frowns, but follows. “You are the angel of death, not me.”

“I am not  _ killing _ them, sunshine, I just come for their souls when they are already dead.”

Azrael hugs him tighter and giggles. He’s doing a good thing, isn’t he? They are doing a good thing. They figured out Lucifer’s intentions when it was too late, when the army of rebels was already behind the walls. Too late to change anything, too late to save their eighth brother from one single move, which cost him the Almighty’s love and his white, starlight-woven wings. 

He’s not making the same mistake again, he’s not letting one more seraph fall. 

“Don’t worry about the human, he was going to die anyway. Do him a favor, speed up the process.”

Uriel doesn’t think on his brother’s words for too long, he has never been much of an over-thinker. Action always was his strongest suit. Azrael lets him go when they stop in front of a window.

“He will be grateful.” says Azrael quietly, when he notices the slight hint of doubt on his brother’s face, and pats him on the shoulder. “Not now, but over time Jehoel will understand.”

“Good thing we have so much of it in front of us.” Uriel grins, spreading his ivory hawk wings with golden lining behind his back. He sees Azrael nodding at him approvingly, but the world around is already blurring as he flies down towards Earth. 

****

The main street is crowded. A woman running by on high heels bumps Uriel with her shoulder, turns back to him with a hand up in apology, and keeps going while still on the phone. The angel follows her with his moss green eyes and smirks. _ And here we go _ ,  _ the ball is rolling. _

The red line of her lifetime just curved simultaneously with the hit, with apology, with the shy smile appearing on her lips.  _ What are the chances she’s never meant to finish the phone call? Is it important? Does she think it will change her life, turn it on its head? _ If anyone took bets, Uriel would gamble everything, every pence, on this call changing her life completely.

Shortening it, to be precise. 

He sees the red line of her life ending right around the next corner under the wheels of the red van. 

Uriel sighs and goes further, looking around for inspiration, searching for the right place. He comes to the vegetable stand, winks at a girl (one more life turns, like a paper plane catching on the wind, but this time it changes for good: she will win the lottery tomorrow or simply find fifty pounds on a street, you never know for sure with this kind of interference) and takes an apple from her hand. She opens her mouth to say something, but he’s already gone with the crowd.

The seraph bites in the ripe fruit with the snowwhite arch of his teeth, the juice dripping down his chin. He wipes it with the forearm of his right sleeve and smiles. 

Here it is.  _ The perfect place to start one more chain reaction. _

Uriel turns his back to the crowd, looking at his own reflection in the window of some italian shoe store, and bites the apple again. The countdown has started and he is trembling with excitement.

_ Seven, six, five. _

Uriel sees the half empty paper cup with coffee and takes it.  _ That’s even better. _

_ Four, three, two.  _

He throws away the apple, turning his back to the window, and the same second crashes into the man in an ivory coat. Curses, sees the dark brown stain on the grey sweater and looks up.

_ One.  _

“Oh my God, I am so terribly sorry, sir.” Uriel takes a few napkins from his pocket and hands them to the man. Meets his blue eyes, which have not a hint of anger in them, and backs off. “Please let me -”

“Good Lord,  _ what a day. _ ” The man smiles, praising all the gods that the coffee was cold at least. He looks down at the brown spot, growing, spreading all over his chest, and takes the napkins. “Thank you. And please don’t worry, this old guy was asking for a place in a trash can for ages. It could be so much worse if your coffee was still hot. Thank you for not using the sipping lid.” Aziraphale smiles at him again and adds. “Good for the environment.” 

Aziraphale follows the young man with a confused look, not sure what he did wrong, wondering, if the stranger simply didn’t get the joke or it was too much for the poor fella. He can be too much sometimes, especially on days like this one: he didn’t sleep very well, he missed the train, now this unfortunate event. Aziraphale tries blotting the coffee stain out, walking along the street. Nothing helps. Annoyed, he tilts his head back and slowly breathes in, closing his eyes.

When he opens them again, a mild smile of relief appears on his face. Aziraphale stands in front of a playbill with shouting inscriptions and colorful photographs. “God is alive” says the sign.

_ Alice would love it! _ Aziraphale thinks, immediately forgetting about the spoiled sweater and confusing interaction, even about the nightmare which left him in tears in the middle of the night. 

He enters the little theatre in the basement (one of those amateur ones, he’s not a huge fan of them himself)  to get two tickets for this evening. It’s always worth a try.

Excited by the idea of some quality time with a friend to get his mind off of everything happening to him lately, he doesn’t notice the man watching him from around the corner. 

Uriel smiles, pleased with himself, and goes away.

_ The red string just twisted around the neck of his prey and the noose tightened. _

****

Aziraphale meets with Alice at the entrance around five. He hugs her tiny body and they stand like that for a moment. When he lets her go, Alice smiles and grabs his offered arm. 

The performing hall is tiny. It reminds Aziraphale of a school auditorium, and pleasant memories wrap him up once they get inside. It’s underground, so not a single ray of sun disturbs the darkness.

The lights go off and curtains go up, and little sparkles of excitement light up Aziraphale’s eyes. When the actors get on stage, something rolls over inside his chest. The feathers, the wings, the black hand-me-down robes - everything rings a bell. Memories are concealed under the muddy waters of distress, so he can’t fight his way past it, can’t clearly see the face from his dream. 

“ _ Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of Her glory _ ,” sing actors with white and black wings, surrounding the empty golden throne in the middle of the stage. They kneel and bow their heads as a rosy-cheeked, gorgeous woman in a white robe with golden embroidery on her sleeves comes out from the backstage area with her hands in a blessing gesture. She walks the stage in silence and takes the throne with elegance and grace.

“Oh my, God is a woman?” Alice gasps and looks at Aziraphale. “Can you believe it?”

“I surely can,” he answers with a sad smile, as memories of one particular starry night start to rush inside his head. He bumps her with the shoulder. “For a moment I thought it would be some kind of boring religious performance, a Bible recap, but I am happy to be wrong.”

“Wait until they start to take their robes off,” whispers a man from behind them, patting Aziraphale on the back. “The goddess indeed is almighty. Not sure how that’s not a sin.”

Alice chuckles, hiding her face in her hands, and then the seraphim (Aziraphale has enough knowledge of the Bible to recognize them) start to sing. He wouldn’t say the singing is heavenly, but it’s good.

For a quick moment Aziraphale looks up at the rich gold and white carved ceiling (the only impressive architectural decision in the whole building). It looks like a huge sun, shining its rays on the red velvet seats, on everyone present. He wo nders if up above it, much, much higher, there’s another choir singing similar songs around another golden throne.

And there is. 

In Heaven seraphim stand around the empty throne and praise the Lord, even in Her absence. 

_ How long has it been since we’ve seen Her last? _ Crowley asks himself. He remembers the day as if it was yesterday, even though it was centuries ago. 

****

_ “My child.” Her warm palm perfectly fits his cheek, simply because her hand sculpted it. The cheekbone, high and sharp, the jawline, cut from the stone, the crooked nose. She caresses his skin with Her thumb and smiles. “Are you bored with Heaven?” _

_ “No, mother.” Jehoel, for he didn’t have another name back then, looks up at her shining face. _

_ She knows. Of course She would know, She’s omniscient after all.  _

_ “You can tell me the truth, my flaming one. There won’t be any punishment after it.” _

_ He sighs. A warm feeling fills him, as Her other hand is placed onto his left cheek. _

_ “I am. All my days are the same length, consisting of the same things. It’s been millenia of singing around You. Not that I didn’t like it.” He grins and blinks at Her. “But isn’t there anything else I can sing around?” _

_ She laughs, and it sounds like thousands of bells ringing in the wind.  _

_ “You and your brothers are my favourite children. You were created to praise my name with your silver voices.” She softly touches his chin. “I’m afraid there’s no better place for you than Heaven.” _

_ Jehoel tries to continue smiling at her, but the mask falls off, and She sees the melancholy in his eyes. _

_ “Oh don’t be sad, my little spark.” God takes Her hands off his cheeks and hugs him, granting him all the warmth Heaven was never able to give him. They sit and She lets him rest his head on Her shoulder. As She speaks, his heart melts like a candle, drips down like wax.  _

_ “There’s a place down there, between Heaven and Hell, which I created with the most love this world can handle. It’s inhabited with humans, the youngest children of mine, soft and shining, kind and loving ones. But they do have goodness and wickedness perfectly balanced in each soul. They don’t belong to Hell, neither do they belong to Heaven. They are all on their own, and that’s not a bad thing for them to be.” _

_ She tells him about Earth, the sunsets and the sea, about the smell the ground gets after the rain, and about the rain itself. She tells him about the little shining dots on the black surface of the sky She gave humans as a present, as an apology for casting them away. She calls them stars and Jehoel closes his eyes, trying to imagine what they would look like. _

_ He isn’t even close. They are thousands of times more beautiful. _

_ **** _

Crowley is walking the unknown trails of his memory, which brings him back to the crispy night in London, the one he spent with Aziraphale. It makes his heart squeeze a little, but the more he plays it out, the more joy it brings him. It was indeed a magical night, no matter how it ended.

He looks quickly at the floor-to-ceiling window and turns back to his brothers. They are singing with naive smiles on their faces. It makes him wonder how long it will take them to realize the absurdity of what they are doing here - singing around God’s throne for millenia. Around God’s empty throne, for a bigger part of it.

Crowley meets Kemuel’s eyes, as open and honest as ever, and his longing steps aside. Maybe he’s indeed home now. This is the place he belongs, surrounded by those who care. He’s singing a song the Almighty put in his heart, and there’s nothing else he could do.

He closes his eyes and reaches heights, but his voice suddenly breaks.

Every seraph is staring at him, confused but mostly scared. They are the voices of God, they’re not supposed to break. Crowley swallows, physically feeling their gazes on his skin.

“I suddenly find myself quite thirsty.” He clears his throat and hardly breathes, squeezing the smile out of himself. “Don’t mind me, will be back in no time.”

Once Crowley turns his back on his brothers, the fake soft expression vanishes from his face. This is the part he needs to play when they are around; he has to talk like a seraph, to sing like a seraph, to walk away like one. But a sudden wave of heat washes him over and his walk becomes uncertain, loses all its smoothness and precision. 

He takes a few steps when something inside his head explodes. He looks around, dazed, blinded.

Crowley’s heart is trembling like a mockingbird clenched in a broad bony hand. Caught off guard, he gasps for air, which is heavy and dead in this place, odorless and with no taste. He leaves the rest of the seraphim to sing and walks away on unsure feet. He puts both hands on the table in the dining room and looks around. He has a hard time thinking about anything, his thoughts are sticky and slimy, blurry and murky, moving annoyingly slowly and extremely fast at the same time.

His skull is full of jello, of rose jam. It ripples and spills over. His veins are full of molten lava, of boiling oil, it’s circling inside his body, burning holes through his skin. Crowley closes his eyes and for one moment his mind is clean and empty. Before the wave of panic sinks him, the seraph manages to catch one meaningful and clear thought, right as it slips through his fingers.

_ It’s Aziraphale. Something bad is about to happen to him. _

Crowley grabs his head and groans, sending short messages one by one.  _ Bless him, bless his heart, bless his kind and warm heart.  _ The pain is getting worse with every word, but he wipes the tears off of his cheeks and goes on. At one point, he starts whispering. 

“Let him be safe. Bless his day, let his day be pleasant and calm. Bless his blue eyes, don’t let a single tear blur his vision. Don’t let him get hurt - not today, not tomorrow, not ever.” Crowley grunts. His head is tearing apart, but he goes on, feeling the blood filling his mouth. “Don’t let him get hurt. You hear me?” He points his eyes up, as if there was anything higher than Heaven. “Don’t You dare let him die!”

The last words come out of his mouth in a cry full of pain and bitterness, and Crowley freezes. 

_ It’s nothing personal, Crowley, it’s just death.  _ Suddenly everything makes sense again.

“Azrael...” hisses the seraph, blindly eyeing the room. He goes back to the throne room, screaming: “Azrael, you scav! What the  _ hell _ did you do to him?”

“Jehoel,  _ language _ ,” gasps Adnachiel and the choir goes silent. 

Everyone is looking at their older brother, tall and broad shouldered, but Uriel’s sight is pointed directly at Crowley. Once their eyes meet, the sunkissed seraph sighs and slowly nods. 

“ _ You? _ ” Crowley hisses. “Of course you are involved in this.” He opens his wings and angrily shakes his head. “What have you done?”

As he flies away, the room stays quiet. No one dares to ask the question hanging in the air, and Uriel doesn’t feel like answering it just yet. Even to himself. He keeps repeating what Azrael said to him the other day, about their brother simply needing more time to see the point. 

But he noticed the shards of pain glaring cold and dark in Crowley’s eyes as he flew away (eyes that used to be warmed by the Almighty’s flames).

What was simple and clear in theory, is falling apart in practice. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time, like grains of sand, slips through his fingers, and he has too little in his palm to waste it. The seraph closes his eyes and focuses on Aziraphale - a tiny soul in a dark place, full of fear and fire. He tries to imagine the soft white light coming from him. 
> 
> Wherever you are, he thinks, breaking through the blackness, I’ll come for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come and see Crowley is flames: https://sinnabonka.tumblr.com/post/615037048187961344/the-seraph-in-the-hellfire-for-chapter-seven-of-i
> 
> This gave me all kinds of feeling. Come and scream at me at the comments.

Uriel’s wings are sparkling gold as he flies after his brother, following him down to Earth. He lands on the rooftop of the aged building, jumps down onto a windowsill and enters the small kitchen. The city outside is dark and noisy as the evening falls over it, just like a curtain covering the stage. Uriel freezes in the middle of the room and lets out a short sigh.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley peeks into the empty bedroom and grunts. He knew Aziraphale was not around the second he left Heaven, but where else Crowley was supposed to go? This flat is the only place he knows the man could be.

He goes back into the kitchen and stops in front of Uriel. A wave of rage is growing bigger inside his chest, as a thin smile appears on his brother’s face. 

“Came all the way down here just to laugh at me?” 

“I owe you an explanation.” Uriel pauses, looking for a trap, searching for anger on his brother’s face. And he finds it, but the fire is too small to actually hurt anyone. “Azrael showed me where you ran away to. We’ve seen you two.” Uriel comes closer and waves his hands in an uncertain gesture, pointing at the couch. “Here. With Earth wine, with the human, talking about some meaningless things…”

“The human has a name,” Crowley mumbles.

“I…” he frowns and shrugs. “Sure.”

“His name is Aziraphale.” Crowley doesn’t blink and the Christmas lights glaring off the balcony of the attic apartment across the street reflect in his eyes. “Humans do have shorter lives, Uriel, but what is the point of living forever if you don’t have  _ meaningless things _ to fill your shelves with?”

“I’m afraid I am not following.”

Crowley laughs and shifts his gaze to the window. Twinkling blue, red and white lights up his face, paler and sharper than usual. He looks back with slight irritation: “Aziraphale drives around the city looking for a first edition he likes, and once he gets it, he invites friends for wine. They love their food, their wine, their boring black and white films...”

“The ultimate goal of existence is incomprehensible for them.” Uriel stubbornly shakes his head .

“You won’t listen to me, will you?” Crowley looks him directly in the eyes and feels chains tightening around his throat. “They are wonderful creatures. No wonder Mother liked them better than us. They are passionate about each small thing around them, they are grateful for simply being alive.”

“See?” Uriel’s face gets red as he bursts out with anger. “This is the reason I believed Azrael! You’re not just curious, you don’t simply watch anymore. You love them.  _ You love him _ .”

Crowley looks at him out of words, out of feeling, exhausted heart humming in his temple, not able to give Uriel any reaction to this statement. The wave of rage goes away, leaving nothing but the empty black sand behind. He stares, not sure how to proceed.

_ I am an angel, am I not supposed to love every creature in this world?  _ crosses his mind, but Crowley cuts the thought off like a useless limb. He’s not supposed to care, none of them are. The only purpose is the Great Plan, it’s all that matters. Seraphim exist to praise the Almighty, any feeling other than unquestioning love for God is indecent. 

“He will be just another soul in Heaven and won’t be able to tempt you anymore,” Uriel continues and grabs Crowley by the shoulders. “And you won’t fall! Won’t lose your wings!”

Crowley blinks a few times in a row, each blink changing the scene under his eyelids. 

One: he stands on the rooftop and listens to Aziraphale’s singing.  _ What was the song? I gave you my heart, that’s what happened, right?  _ Two: his hand is wrapped around Aziraphale’s waist, they are too close, so close that their steamy breath mixes into one small cloud.  _ How did I even come up with this name? Why did I think coming closer was a good idea?  _ Three: the kiss, stolen from him in the doorway - too short, too quick.  _ How did it taste, was it mulled wine and cheese or was it tears and hot sand? _

“You…” He swallows and feels a treacherous tear dripping down his cheek. He feels his fists clench and his teeth grind. “You want to kill this innocent human to keep me from losing my place in a damned choir around an empty throne?”

“Jehoel, brother, keep calm.” Uriel starts to back off, feeling a wave of heat coming from Crowley. “It’s all for the best… You'll see!”

“Oh I see.” Crowley nods, coming closer, chasing him, eyes burning from the inside with God’s fire. “If you don’t want me to fall, Uriel,” Crowley grabs him by the throat, “don’t make me.”

“You wouldn’t…” hisses Uriel, not able to take a full breath.

“You and our highly respected brothers have no idea what I would and would not do.” The flame in Crowley’s eyes becomes real. The more Uriel looks inside them, the more he’s sure he’s looking at two embers straight from Hell. “You know nothing about Earth, about humans, about this one human in particular. And about me.” Sparks fall onto Uriel’s skin and burn it, making him grimace in pain. Crowley loosens his hold a little. “Where is he? Where did you send Aziraphale with your fate-changing push, Uriel?”

At this point Crowley is not sure himself what he is capable of. And his brother knows it.

“I...they’ll see the play.” The young angel coughs and looks down. He is shaking under Crowley’s hand. “I’ll show the way.”

Without a single word, Crowley gets his hands off his younger brother. Uriel is still touching his neck nervously when they fly out of the window. Watching Uriel flying higher and higher, Crowley wonders why the fear of death even worked on Uriel. Why was there the fear in the first place?

****

_ Whatever happens to Aziraphale today, I did it to him _ , thinks Crowley and feels a stab of guilt between his ribs. The cold air in his hair freshens his thoughts, misted by the flaming anger, but when he tries to bestow a few more blessings onto Aziraphale, each one returns like an arrow forged from pain. They hit him right in the temple. He has no real power over this soul’s destiny anymore. The trigger has been pulled and the gun is going to go off no matter what. 

_ Let it not be too late _ , whispers Crowley, looking at the city from above. His eyes catch on a column of black smoke rising up from the roofs and in that same second he knows this is the place. He knows Aziraphale is there, even though Uriel doesn’t say a word. 

“Go back home, brother,” Crowley says with a trembling voice. He flaps his wings, trying to stop, levitating in one place. “If you have to, go tell everyone what I am about to do.”

“Don’t go in there, Jehoel. You can’t save him.”

“I can try.” Crowley smiles, but the smile comes out crooked and bitter. 

Uriel shakes his head. Before flying back home, he silently mouths, “I am sorry.” 

And Crowley nods back at him.

When he stays alone, he looks down and sees two fire-trucks and ambulances on the sidewalk, a crowd gathering around the entrance of a theatre. He sees people rushing outside, firemen carrying the injured. He flies closer, still holding out hope to find Aziraphale safe and sound. Crowley lands in the dark corner and lets the nightfall swallow his shadow, hiding the pair of black wings from prying eyes. The second that the evidence of his angelic nature is gone, he runs toward the ambulance and their wailing sirens. 

Crowley throws himself into the crowd like it’s the dark waters of a bottomless sea. He spins around, trying to find a familiar face, trying to catch a pair of blue eyes with his, but all he sees is the endless range of mouths, distorted by panic, and pale ovals of faces crying for help. He’s surrounded by them, like a drowning man by waves, and he feels the same way, wallowing in the sea of awe, going headlong under water. He leaps from the depth for a single moment and takes a deep breath. His eyes catch on another familiar face in the distance. 

Crowley shoves people away, trying not to let that face disappear again. He extends his hand and grabs the woman by her wrist.

“Good Lord, Az, you…” Alice turns her head to him and gasps.

“Where is he?” Crowley pulls Alice closer. He can’t let her go, as she will be gone in the powerful stream of the panicking crowd in a moment. “Where’s Aziraphale?”

“Anthony?” Alice gets hit by another woman with a kid in her arms. Tears mixed with soot and ash are dripping down her cheeks. “How..?”

“Was around. Doesn’t matter.” He looks around above everyone’s heads, standing on his toes. He holds her tightly with both his arms, covering her from the jostling of the crowd with his own body. “Where’s Aziraphale, Alice?”

“Somewhere in the crowd, I don’t know.” She also tries to look around, the very same second a huge guy almost runs over her and smacks Crowley with his elbow. “Have you talked?”

“Naah, saw you and assumed he must be somewhere around.” Crowley looks back at Alice, places his hands onto her shoulders. “Focus, darling, did you see him leaving the building?”

“I don’t know.” She purses her lips. “It was so quick, everyone was screaming... Some guy just pushed me out on the street.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know, Anthony, he said he needed something to drink and…The fire... I haven’t seen him since. He has to be... The fire brigade can’t get inside!”

“It’s alright.” Crowley does his best to smile softly at her, tries to hold her still for a moment. People keep flooding the street, someone screams. A girl bumps Alice and she slips out of his arms, gets swept away. He shouts: “I will take care of him!”

“No!” Alice tries to make her way back to Crowley, but people are carrying her away. She doesn’t even reach the ground with her feet anymore. “You can’t! Anthony! He’ll get out!”

“He won’t,” Crowley whispers, voice breaking, looking Alice in her eyes. 

She can’t hear him, but somehow she understands. She has no idea why, but she knows he’s telling the truth. Alice grabs onto the shoulder of one of the officers, anchoring herself for a moment, and a loud sob breaks free from her mouth. She’s watching Crowley turn his back to her and run toward the building in flames. A few times he’s hit by the crowd, getting dragged under before leaping back to the surface. For a moment she can’t see his fiery hair anywhere, but the next second he gets to the door and pushes it open. 

“Hey, where do you think you are going?” screams a fireman when Anthony slips past him. 

Everyone seems to forget seeing him the moment he gets inside.

The black cloud of smoke billows out through the doorway. It looks like a huge blackmouthed monster swallows him. 

When the door closes behind him, Alice can’t hold it in anymore. She simply lets the riptide carry her away. Tears start to drip down her face. The crowd disperses at the sidewalk, and she finds herself standing alone, stunned and in despair. Someone gently touches her shoulder, starts to ask her questions: is she hurt? Does she need help? But not a single word comes out of her mouth. 

Her eyes are fixed on a playbill above the entrance, slowly curling up with the heat coming out the windows. Before it starts to burn, she reads the words “God is alive” on the bottom of it and her heart sinks. She stopped believing in God a while ago, when she was twelve or thirteen. But it’s never too late to start again, isn’t it?

****

_ For Heaven’s sake _ , thinks Crowley, but repels the thought when the heat wave hits him. That’s not correct, there’s nothing left of Heaven in this place. He takes his first step and looks around.

“Aziraphale!” he coughs as the hot smoky air gets into his lungs. “Where are you?”

His vision, blurred by tears, travels from one corner of the hall to another - searches the ceiling, runs through the fragments and trash on the floor. The red couch lying on its side by the cashier area is smoking, slowly and calmly, unconcerned with the destruction around it. 

The whole place looks like catacombs. 

His throat is closing up, Crowley can’t breathe. He presses his shirt to his mouth and steps into the flames dancing in the narrow corridor. 

The fire is harmless to his skin, it licks his fingers with a rough cat-like tongue. Crowley is “the flaming one” after all. He feels his clothes start to burn in several places at once, but he will think about that later. 

The seraph rushes through the corridors, desperately seeking, running into several dead ends. He strides quickly past the dressing room, absently noticing the clothes and bags left behind in panic; he steps over the flower bouquet which will never be handed to a pretty actress at the end of the play; he pushes away a teddy bear with his foot.

It reminds Crowley of Pompei. He was there, he saw everyone running away, never looking back at cherished things left behind. It never worked out well though. 

At some point he sees light coming through the smoke, and heads toward it. Crowley comes out of the doorway and at the same second, a joist and a huge part of the carved ceiling falls down, leaving towering clouds of dust and ashes in the air behind him. Crowley looks back at the pile of rubble blocking the exit just for a quick moment, realizing that this path is out of the question now. 

The theatre looks surreal: the curtain is on fire, which gives it some resemblance to Hell’s Gate; the vanished surface of the stage reflects the blaze, making the floor look like lava bubbling at his feet. The throne in the middle of the stage is melting, slowly losing its royal touch. Crowley starts pouring with sweat, cold sweat. He steps over the twisted metal and faux plumage constructions, which definitely were wings once, and comes to the edge of the stage. 

The epicentre of fire is clear now. He sees it in the backstage area.

Crowley coughs and bends down in sudden pain, exploding inside his chest. 

His personal Hell has broken loose and the ghosts of his nightmares are haunting him.

“Aziraphale!”

Crowley won’t be able to scrub off the black from his lungs in millenia, or wipe off the taste of soot from his tongue. Ever. His shirt has almost dissolved in flames, his boots stick to the floor with melted soles. 

Time, like grains of sand, slips through his fingers, and he has too little left in his palm. The seraph closes his eyes and focuses on Aziraphale - a tiny soul in a dark place, full of fear and fire. He tries to imagine the soft white light coming from him. 

_ Wherever you are _ , he thinks, breaking through the blackness,  _ I’ll come for you.  _

Something tickles the shell of his mind. It’s too weak to identify, but he reaches out to it, repeats the name time after time. He hears the clockwork ticking inside his head annoyingly.

And finally Crowley senses him.

He spreads out the wings, not actually caring that they may end up looking just like those on the floor. The black feathers, lit up with red flames, shining like charcoal. 

Crowley tries to fly over the flames, regrets it the second he reaches up the ceiling. The heated air burns his throat down to his lungs and it’s clear he won’t be able to say a single word thereafter. The edges of his wings start to smoulder, smelling like stinking pitch, and with every wing-beat flying gets harder. At some point all he can do is to go in longish jumps over the piles of wood and cement. 

Crowley smashes down the door with his shoulder and enters the canteen. He feels the pulsing light coming from the door at the back of the room - the kitchen, apparently. He heads toward it, but after a few steps freezes as something definitely doesn’t add up. 

The whole basement is filled with smoke, covered with ash flakes and soot. A few pieces of furniture are smouldering and slowly burning down because of the tiny stray sparks flying around. Only the stage is ablaze, burning like hell, flames licking the ceiling in white and gold. And yet, in front of Crowley there is an angry fire devouring everything in its wake, leaving nothing but ashes behind.

He slowly backs off, when the realisation crawls under his skin. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he whispers, voice trembling. 

****

The seraph uses his wings to protect his body, when he feels the heat of hellfire getting closer with the sudden gust of air. His first two wings cover his face - only a pair of glaring irises can be seen between the feathers. The second pair blocks his feet from the angry flames dancing on the floor. The third pair is set around him like a shield, blocking him from the hot sparks, stinging like bees. 

Crowley exhales deeply, to the point that his lungs are empty and his chest hurts with the urge to breath in. He carefully walks toward the metal door, blurring with heat and glaring across the room.

_ I’m coming _ , he sends the message as the rhythmic pulsation coming from behind the door slows down, and then stops.

At his back, the plaster falls off the wall with a dreadful sound. Crowley doesn’t have to turn around, his imagination is enough to see the smoking heap of black rubble. He keeps on going, forcing himself not to notice the pain, nesting in both his feet, coming up his knees, licking the soft skin between black wings. Time stops, nothing remains but heat.

_ Answer me _ , he begs, throwing himself at the metal door, feeling his skin burning, blistering.

Suddenly, the door opens under his shoulder and he’s brought inside by inertia. He falls onto his knees, lays on the floor for the moment, covered with all of his wings like a large, ancient turtle. He wants to feel like one, wise and calm, washed by the cold waters of an endless ocean, but the explosion at the periphery brings him back. Crowley gets up and looks around.

There’s no fire to be seen in the kitchen. It’s filled up with thick smoke, but still looks better than the rest of the theater. A shy ray of hope peeks out his trembling heart. 

Crowley coughs, wipes the tears mixed with ashes from his cheek and calls:

“Aziraphale! Where the Hell are…”

His voice breaks as he notices the body stretched out on the floor in the corner.

_ Oh no. It can’t be real. _

_ **** _

The memory of crawling on his knees toward the body fades from his mind later, as well as the whole journey through the inferno, but what stays with him for ages (tattooed under his eyelids, Crowley sees it every time he closes them) is the pale face. 

Aziraphale lays on his back (still clenching the wet towel he possibly used to breathe through), too bright, too clean for this place. There’s no sign of fire on him, the expression on his face is soft and calm, and Crowley finds himself whispering his personal prayer: _ Please, let him be alright. _

“Aziraphale.” He gently slaps the man’s cheek. When his eyes remain closed, Crowley tries to feel the pulse on his wrist. He doesn’t feel anything, and presses his head to Aziraphale’s chest. “Please, one little heartbeat. Just for me…”

Crowley doesn’t wait long enough to hear it, he simply doesn’t have it in him now. If, God forbid, the chest answers him with silence instead of a hollow beat, his spine will break in half, not able to carry his useless body. 

_ I did this to him _ , thinks Crowley and when it starts to ache under his ribs, wards off the thought.

The seraph lifts the body from the dirty floor, a floor which used to be white once, and takes Aziraphale under his shoulders. 

“Hold on,” Crowley growls, when the relaxed body leans toward his burnt chest. “Let me get you out of here.”

He hugs Aziraphale, throws the soft and fragile body over his shoulder, covers most of it with one pair of wings, charred around the edges, grey with ash. Crowley walks back toward the metal door. He could fly a bit, just a few dozen feet, but additional weight makes it much harder. 

He knows he won’t be able to carry Aziraphale all the way through the hellfire, the maze of corridors and out to the street, but at least he can take him as far away from the hellfire as possible.

_ You had to listen to me back then, you fool, _ Crowley thinks, his heart bleeding out in his chest, feeling how lifeless the body in his hands is.  _ I offered you all my wings, black and posh, clear and healthy then, unlike now. Offered you Heaven. Offered you myself! _

The seraph gets to the doorway and looks out. He has never been to Hell before, but now it feels like the place to cross off his to-see list. 

When he walks all the way to the corridor, he doesn’t feel the pain anymore. Crowley doesn’t allow himself to feel it, makes his body cut off each and every nerve-ending that might bring a hint of ache to his brain. He will deal with every wound later, one by one, but now the only goal is to get fresh air. 

He has to open the door, step outside and let his lungs open. He needs to fill them with air, like a small hole dug with bare hands in the sand is filled with water during high tide.

“It’s gonna be alright,” he whispers through clenched teeth. “Tickety-boo. Tip-top.  _ Fuck! _ ..”

The hellfire licks Crowley’s elbow and a red flower blossoms on his skin, but the pain never reaches his mind. He walks, and walks, and walks. The journey across the damned canteen lasts for fifty light years, and at some point Crowley almost gives up. 

When he finally escapes to the safety of darkness, he can’t stop moving. He’s left the hell behind, but is still too afraid to look back, to see the flame spreading and following him.

When Crowley sees a tiny white light at the end of the tunnel, which definitely means they are almost at the cashier, almost out of this place, he spreads his wings. There’s not much left of them, once beautiful and strong, and he would definitely feel them hurting if he had not vetoed the pain. He still manages to kick off the ground and fly toward the light, like a sinking ship sailing toward the lighthouse and the dry land it promises. 

At the sight of the main door, broad and heavy, the seraph gives a sigh of relief. It feels like a mountain lifting off his shoulders. 

When his wings keep cutting the air but can’t hold them up anymore, Crowley lands and walks again. He passes the entrance to the stage, ruined and blocked by rubble, passes the dressing room, all the time holding tight to Aziraphale. When he steps over the smoky trash pile, his ankle twists and they collapse on the floor. He falls to his knees, exhausted and sweat-dripping, a hiss of air escaping his lungs. Crowley looks toward the stairs, leading up and outside, and swears. He gently puts Aziraphale on the ground and presses his head to the man's chest, closes his eyes. 

_ How high should I count? _ crosses his mind, when he doesn’t hear anything in the first two seconds.  _ Can a heart go without a single beat in fifteen seconds? _

They almost did it - it can't end up like this. The seraph grabs the beige waistcoat with his ash blackened fingers, clenching the thick fabric as his head rests on Aziraphale’s still chest; he listens for even the faintest of sounds, all his focus trained on the body lying beneath him.

He doesn’t notice tears going down his cheeks until a single one falls into his ear, the saline water tickling him as it begins to pool. He straightens up and wipes it away with the back of his hand. The place is suddenly so dark, so terrifying, that his heart falls. 

Crowley needs a bit of hope to get through it, a little miracle, and so looks up at the pale calm face. And he gasps when he sees eyes slightly moving behind the eyelids. 

“Aziraphale…” he whispers, because that’s the best his voice can do now. “Come on, wake up.” He cups his face, caresses his cheek gently, smiles when the eyelids flutter. 

First, a deep frown line cuts through his forehead, erasing the peaceful expression from his face, and then Aziraphale opens his eyes. The misty-eyed gaze travels Crowley’s face, sad and tired, but lit up with the last spark of hope. Once recognition arrives, the eyes widen and stop blinking.

“Are you with me? Can you hear me?” Crowley gets Aziraphale’s hands in his, and starts to press quick gentle kisses to his knuckles. “It’s gonna be alright now, Az. Say something.”

“I…” Aziraphale’s expression becomes more complex, the brows are furrowed. “Are those wings?” 

Crowley smiles, while continuing to leave an invisible angel’s mark all over Aziraphale’s skin.  _ Bless each finger, each tiniest bone in his body, bless white crescents of his nails, his creamy skin _ . Crowley deeply breathes in the feeling. He notes that none of the blessings come back to him, all are accepted. 

The red thread of Aziraphale’s fate just got so much longer, leading to somewhere only the Almighty knows.

“They are.” A smile is stuck to Crowley’s face, he can’t bear it.

“Why do - … Why do you have them?” Aziraphale squeezes his hands, still staring at the black feathers with confusion. “And why… so many?”

Instead of giving an answer, Crowley laughs. The sound comes out braying and crowish, as bitter as rock salt by the end. The seraph slowly spreads his wings outs, letting the human take a good look. 

“I would say it’s a perfect amount of them. If it wasn’t for them, you…”

He stops. Even the thought of what could have happened hurts him as no hellfire could. Instead, he gives another smile, and Aziraphale gives one back, even though his mind is clouded over, eyes still misty. He keeps on glancing at the seraph’s wings, charred and smoking, black as the night.

Out of the corner of his eye, Crowley notices the main door opening, even before he hears the voices. The light fills the room like water as a dam breaks - sharply, in one second. The moment is enough for him to fold, then hide his wings. He is still not fully back to his senses after the whole ordeal, but the alarming thought that humans can’t see him like this is clear.

He feels helpless and naked without wings, feels his burnt back exposed now. He notices the disappointment in Aziraphale’s eyes once they are surrounded by golden coats and orange gloves.

Someone pats Crowley on the back, gently and carefully. Another man in a fireman’s helmet helps him to get up. Crowley gets to his feet, slowly and unwillingly, but Aziraphale grabs onto what is left of his trousers and pulls him back. Their eyes meet and Crowley knows that there’s going to be a question he won’t be able to answer.

“Are you my guardian angel?” 

The big blue eyes are open and conscious, lips flattened into a single white line. Even if Crowley could talk right now, he knows the words wouldn’t come out. His chest feels like it’s pressed between two millstones. If one doesn’t grind him up, the other will. 

“He definitely is, sir.” One of the firefighters answers for him, a slim man with a huge smile. He looks at Crowley and winks at him, while undoing Aziraphale’s collar. He nods to the man holding Crowley by the shoulder, and they start to walk away. 

“He will be alright. Let us take care of your arm now. Just look at you…” The fireman shakes his head in disbelief. “A knight in shining armor, walking into the flames. Such a movie star move.”

Before the voices behind their backs blend into one indistinct sound, Crowley hears another fireman talking to Aziraphale. “That’s alright now, we got you, sir. Praise God that your friend was hotshot enough to come back for you. Now close your eyes…”

_ God has nothing to do with it _ . The thought pops up in the seraph’s head, clear and irritating. He clenches his fists with anger. 

Crowley stumbles on the stairs, but the firm hand under his elbow doesn’t let him fall. He feels exhaustion, which he was holding back for so long, flooding his body. He hears the echo of something distant but slowly approaching, and before he knows it, the great wall of pain hits him.

Crowley stops for a moment. The adrenaline drains away, so does the fear. In the empty spaces pain begins to seep back in. It is lingering and slight at the beginning, but grows in intensity, gets more acute and sharp with every step toward the ambulance. Crowley gets into the car, fighting back the pain with his last ounce of strength.

“There.” The soft voice comes to him through the blur. “Rest your head and let me see your arm.”

The seraph closes his eyes (just for a moment, he keeps telling himself), and the blackness wraps him up and relieves the suffering. Everything fades away, slowly but surely, when the last thought, fuzzy, consisting of fragments of consciousness, inflames his mind with a flash.

_ Let him be alright. _


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moment of calm before the final battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t believe it either, the chapter eight is finally ready! 
> 
> Thank you for your patience and for all the screams in the comments 🖤

“Welcome back, sleeping beauty.” 

An unsure voice cuts through the darkness and throws Crowley out of his warm and sweet cradle, woven of nothing but calmness and morphine. 

For the first moment he’s not even sure the voice comes from outside his head. It all feels surreal. When he moves slightly, the room, bright white and empty, spins around, as though he were the needle of a spinning top. Crowley closes his eyes to keep himself in place, to anchor. 

He peels open his eyes when the room tires of its waltz, only to be blinded by bright lights. As the world finally takes shape, Crowley sees a face framed with blond hair right before him.

“Thought you’d be sleeping that crazy night off for the rest of your life.” Alice allows herself a little smile and places her hand on Crowley’s. “So happy I don’t have to spend another week by your bed.”

“Another...week?” 

She nods, and Crowley’s eyes widen with shock that is slowly growing inside him. Alice surrenders and laughs, loudly and freely, and this laughter brings him relief. 

“Okay, that was fun. The look on your face.” 

“Sure. Enjoy the show!” 

Crowley would like to be or at least to look offended, he even tries to frown, but the palm on his skin feels so warm and gentle, that he fails. 

Instead, he asks: “Where’s Aziraphale? Is he..?”

“Oh he’s fine. I mean, fine for a person who survived the huge fire.” She shrugs and reclines. “Might need a little rest, like all of us, but he’ll be alright.” Alice lowers her gaze. “Thanks to you.”

The silence fills the hospital room, broken only by their uneven breaths and the rhythmic beeping of devices connected to Crowley’s chest. Remembering something important, Alice shakes the heavy feeling off and looks back at Crowley with another smile. 

“The doctor said you’ll be fine too. The fire got your elbow, the skin is damaged on both feet a bit, but he said it’s a miracle how quickly you’re healing.” She tilts her head. “I say the miracle is how you and Aziraphale got out of that dreadful blaze alive. The rest is just... a pleasant bonus.” 

“Can’t disagree with you there.” 

Alice looks into his eyes like keyholes, seeking for the hidden knowledge laying within him. With every passing second, her fingers clench tighter to Crowley's arm.

“How did you do it, Anthony?” He sees little diamonds of tears in her eyes and his heart sinks. “The place was ablaze, I couldn’t see my own hands because of the smoke. When firemen got you both out of the place, the ceiling collapsed. They say it was a matter of seconds!” 

“Lucky us.” Crowley smiles, but the smile is crooked and feels as fake as the flakes inside a snow globe. Decoration, nothing more.

Crowley notices her bottom lip trembling as she attempts to hide behind her hands.

The seraph knows the feeling. He felt the same way when Az opened his eyes in that dark corridor; his heart still was not in the right place. When you’ve lost hope, it’s hard to regain it. It’s like going through the same pain again and again, not completely sure it’s gone. Not sure it will ever be gone.

Crowley feels the fear, coming from Alice, and it's like a double-edged dagger, hurting both of them at the same time. 

“Come here.” Crowley extends a hand and invites Alice to come closer. 

When she presses her head onto his chest, the seraph gently pats her on the back. “We are alive. We are out of those flames. Nobody’s hurt. Let's just put it behind us and enjoy the moment, shall we?”

When she nods, still silently sobbing, Crowley hugs her with his uninjured arm. 

_ Let her be alright. Let the fire be just one of those nightmares you are happy to wake up from, finding yourself in a cozy bed with a beloved one by your side. Let her feel the joy of life again, _ the seraph smiles and sends his last prayer:  _ Let her enjoy it. More than ever before, if that’s even possible. _

“I thought I’d lost him. And here you are, out of nowhere, a knight in shining armour...” She sucks a breath, wiping her eyes. “He’s lucky to have you around, Anthony.”

Crowley keeps gently caressing her shoulder with his thumb, while his mind drifts away from the place. It goes back in time and space, it goes back to the day he heard Aziraphale singing for the first time. The way the warm sunlight was refracted by the kitchen window and the silver in his hair; the way his voice sounded, caught in the wind; how transparent and clean the morning air was, just before the city had awakened. The calmness, the pure joy of that single moment.

The next scene, like a twenty fifth frame, flashes before his eyes. A once white tiled floor, red flashes on the whitewashed walls, the smell of burning, the smoke, the pale oval face amidst all this horror, with its calm, peaceful expression.

“Nothing would have happened to him, if it wasn’t for me,” whispers Crowley, not sure if he wants to be heard. Alice doesn’t though, and he feels the tension leaving her body slowly, in waves, like warmth.

A knock on the door, quiet and gentle, breaks the silence suddenly filling the room.

Alice turns to the sound, and the smile blossoms on her face.

“Hi, angel.” She waves at Aziraphale, peeking shyly into the half open door, inviting him in. Crowley feels the calm of all her muscles and it gives him just enough energy to turn his head toward the soft voice coming from the door.

“I should...Probably not the best time.” Az nervously smiles, pulling the door closed, eyes glued to the floor. 

_ Look at me _ , begs Crowley silently. _ Look up, talk to me. Give me a sign, any sign that proves this all is real. We got away from the fire, we survived. Look up, Az. _

“Oh no, honey, you two have a lot to catch up on.” Alice gets up from the bed and gently caresses the seraph's hand. “See you around, Anthony, hopefully on a better occasion.”

“Find a new story about France to tell and I’ll be there.” 

“Oh boy, I’ve got plenty of those for you...” 

Alice takes her coat from the chair, winks at Crowley and heads to the door. 

“Call me.” She points her finger at Aziraphale. “If you need anything, a ride home, call me or Tom, either of us will come.” Alice makes her way to the door, pausing halfway through and whispering: “Go easy on him. Whatever it was between you two, he deserves some rest.”

Being caught in a tornado Alice flusters him, and as Aziraphale smiles back at her it's just with his lips. The young woman can see the hesitation and the little sparks of pain deep down in his blue eyes, cold and itchy. But that’s not something her warm hand can make go away, so she leaves, closing the door behind herself.

And silence settles into the awkward air between the two.

Aziraphale breathes out a few times loudly, trying to get words out of himself along with air, but it seems like he never will be able to do it again. He looks at the body on the hospital bed. Here he is, the man who saved him. There’s a slight aftertaste of fear, which reaches its peak every time Aziraphale closes his eyes. When he blinks, a pair of black charred wings grow behind Anthony’s back. The cold feeling slithers down his spine.

“You alright?” asks Crowley. He keeps his voice gentle and lower than usual as he senses the fear emanating from Aziraphale. Successfully the words break the bubble of anxiety, clearing a path between them.

“Safe and sound.” Az smiles, taking a few steps toward the bed. Now, with the tension eased, it’s easier to just be there. Easier to just open his mouth and talk.

“I believe I was born under a lucky star. No burns, no wounds, even my coat is perfectly fine. Dirty, but that’s the kind of a problem I am ready to deal with.” Aziraphale lets out an unsure laugh and shrugs. He feels that now, if he could, he would talk for hours just to stop the silence from coming back in between them. “How is your arm?”

Crowley looks down at the bandage, as if it is the first time he’s seeing it. 

“Could have been better. Definitely could have been worse on the other hand.” He smiles and looks at Az again. “I will be alright. Alice says I’m lucky as well.” 

He nods towards the chair. 

Aziraphale sits down and lets his arms rest casually on his knees. Crowley quickly looks away. This simple action tells him more than any words ever could - it’s still hard for Aziraphale to feel safe around the seraph. 

_ It is real, we got out, we are in the clear now. _ The thought fills Crowley up with the warmest feeling of all. It may not be for long, he is perfectly aware of it, but they both could use a little time-out. 

“I owe you a thank you, Anthony.” Aziraphale speaks up.

“Naaah.”

“I mean it.” Az swallows and nervously shifts on the chair. “If it wasn’t for you…”

“It all would never have happened,” Crowley mutters in a quick irritated whisper. 

“...let’s say, it would not end as happily.” Aziraphale closes his eyes. “I can still see it. The long dark corridors, the canteen on fire, the smoke. I can smell it too.”

Crowley looks into his face, wants to reach out to him, to cover the man’s hand with his own, but at the last second he changes his mind. Aziraphale slowly shakes his head.

”How did you know I was there?”

“I didn’t.”

“Do you wander into fires often then?”

Crowley sighs. He didn’t think it all through, did he? There’s no perfect way to get out of this situation, except for telling the truth. He’s too tired to come up with a better idea anyway.

“I felt something was wrong.” Crowley finally speaks up. “I have no explanation, but I was sure something was going to happen to you. So I came.”

“How did you know I was there, Anthony?” 

Crowley hesitates. Aziraphale saw his wings, clear as day, but who knows how the memory works in such circumstances. 

“I saw Alice in the crowd, figured you must be somewhere around.” The seraph squeezes the smile out of himself. “Az, I…”

“So your angelic nature doesn’t have anything to do with it then? Nor your brother, threatening me in my sleep?”

The seraph flinches, as if cold fingertips suddenly touched the back of his neck.

“It’s complicated.”

“Try me.” 

Crowley looks into Airaphale’s open and focused face, into his bright eyes that are appealing him for the truth. The wave of irritation reaches the seraph, making him wince, as if from the first echo of a headache.

He squeezes his eyes shut as the pain peaks, and the darkness brings forward a familiar image with a flash: a pale face, a wet towel clenched in a hand, his pitched fingers caressing a cold cheek. 

Crowley shudders and looks at Aziraphale, safe and sound in front of him. 

It’s too much, the whole situation is way bigger than him. The seraph wasted all his strength on saving Aziraphale, not an ounce is left to go into details about how.

“I promise you, we will talk about it. About everything.” Crowley lowers his eyelids, tiredly throwing his head back on the pillow, and lets out a long sigh. “Just not now. I’m so tired, Az. I just...”

Aziraphale nods, as if the man on the hospital bed can see it, and nervously rubs his arms. All his anger, all his impatience with Crowley is gone. It all washes aside, goes away like the ocean at low tide. 

On these white sheets, in this empty room, the body on the bed looks helpless, defenseless, as brittle as a glass figure. Nothing left of the frightening creature too powerful to be kept in this room for long. The bandage on his elbow slides and the skin, bright scarlet and burning, gleams from the ointment that’s been applied to it. Az’s heart falls down, like a rock in the well. Long and with no sound heard.

“Alright.” Aziraphale, not able to take his eyes off of the awfully damaged arm, purses his lips. “Get some rest, you need all your strength to recover.”

Aziraphale forces himself to take even steps, fighting the urge to flee, when he hears a weak voice calling back for him.

“Don’t go,” whispers Crowley without opening his eyes. “Stay with me.”

Aziraphale stops and looks over his shoulder, sees the calm and peaceful expression on Crowley’s face. His chest moves up and down evenly, he’s already asleep. A bitter hesitation burns the tip of Azirapahale’s tongue, as he loudly swallows. His heart is racing, definitely not making it easier for him to clear his head, but before he knows it, his feet are already bringing him back to the chair next to the bed.

Before taking a seat, Aziraphale extends a hand and lovingly covers Crowley’s shoulders with a heavy blanket. He gently removes the red lock of hair from his forehead and smiles.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be here, dear.”

_ Dear _ , he repeats with surprise inside his head. It never occurred to him how often he used the word while talking to Crowley. It never occurred to him, as well, how intimate the word was, and how he actually meant it every time.

****

The quietness of the world around is deafening; the white light, pouring onto his skin, is blinding and not warm at all. Aziraphale stands there, in the middle of nowhere, and looks around. His head feels squeezed between vice grips, but at the same time the pressure somehow comes from the inside. Aziraphale tries to shake his head, like a diver trying to get water out of his ears, but the feeling remains. The world is a bowl of jelly, a piece of amber, and he’s a poor little fly stuck in it.

As his eyes get used to the blinding light, he starts to notice unclear contours of the surrounding walls. 

“Hello?”

His voice flies like wind spreading ripples all over the perfectly smooth surface. He’s been here before, it’s the same cavern he walked in his other dream, the one he woke up from trembling and in a cold sweat. Aziraphale looks down and sees his bare feet ankle deep under the snow. He doesn’t feel it; the snow is thick and fluffy, and looks like foam leaking out of a huge bath. He takes a step and hears a crunch of the icy crust beneath his foot.

“Anyone there?” He keeps on walking and notices that the beam of light coming from above him is now following him step by step. Aziraphale looks up, shielding his eyes, and shouts. “It’s not funny! Whoever you are, come down! I insist!”

Nothing happens, and Aziraphale keeps walking. He has no idea if he has chosen the right direction, if there is anything to head toward, but just the thought of staying in one place, surrounded by the pitch darkness, terrifies him. He walks and at some point, hears two voices. They are too far away to understand what they are saying, but something in the voices’ patterns sounds familiar.

_ “More wine?” _

The clattering of glass, the creak of the couch, the soft chuckle. The sound of wine pouring into the glass.

_ “I will take care of it.” _

Aziraphale sees a warm yellow light pouring out of something resembling a window, a hole cut down in the black wall of the cave, in the solid fabric of reality. When he comes closer, his heart sinks. The picture, appearing to his gaze, is blurred and colorless like in an old movie.

_ “And you, sir, go on reading.” _

He’s looking at his apartment from above, like there's a hole in the ceiling. Aziraphale sees himself with a manuscript in his hand, lovingly gazing at the glare of the wine glass being refilled. Crowley puts the empty bottle aside, grants him the warmest of his smiles, and nods, inviting him to go on.

Aziraphale presses a hand to the window glass, separating him from the room, from this little vault of warmth and tranquility of their own. Looking at himself shining with happiness, he wonders how such a lovely night turned out to be a heartbreaking one in the end.

Aziraphale hears himself reading the story, taking a few breaks to discuss a paragraph or two, but his full attention is geared to Crowley’s face.  _ I’ve never seen that look he gives me when I look away _ . Aziraphale exhales, suppressing a sad smile, and looks at himself moving onto the couch. Cheeks pink like rose petals, eyes shining like dewdrops in the early sunlight. A quick touch of unsure fingertips to an elbow; a knee pressed closer to another one’s hip; a tongue slowly and willingly licking lips which became extremely dry at some point, as dry as earth gets without the rain. He remembers the feeling, he thought no water could quench his thirst.

Aziraphale doesn’t hear what his other self is whispering, but Crowley laughs, throwing his head back. For a moment it looks like he’s noticed the unwelcome guest in the ceiling, and Aziraphale ducks, hiding from his foggy relaxed sight. When he peeks in again, the couch is empty and the lights are off. The world outside the window awakens, gathers the stars in the wicker basket and rolls out the white disc of the sun to the gray firmament. When Aziraphale is ready to leave for good in search of anything else out there, the door slams open, its knob hitting the wall. 

Footsteps, quick and edgy, cross the corridor and enter the living room. Messy hair, face reddened from wine and running, Aziraphale from the past stops in front of the window, takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. He looks at the window of the apartment in the attic, nervously swallows and begins his little dance of awe. Circling and pacing around the room, he keeps whispering like a mantra:  _ “What have I done?” _

“Nooo.” Aziraphale in the cave shakes his head; fades back farther and farther, when the memory comes up from the darkest corner of his mind. 

_ Not this scene _ , he begs all the higher powers out there.  _ Please, not this one. Anything, just not this gentle heart being shattered by an unsure and clumsy hand of mine. _ His prayer seems to be heard, as the place suddenly gets darker and everything stops. There’s no clock ticking on the wall, no whistling of the wind through the cracked window, no echoing footsteps on the dark wooden floor. 

Time freezes.

_ It’s not like sand _ , realizes Aziraphale suddenly, when the cold feeling drips down his back.  _ Time is more like water: running some times, freezing at others. One man gets an inexhaustible well, all another one receives is a glass. Half empty glass.  _

He looks down into the flat again, with his heart slowly filling up with cooling blood, and sees himself on the couch. Knees up against his chest, the deep wrinkle cutting through his forehead. 

A little sudden movement in the corner of the room catches Aziraphale’s attention. It looks like a shadow in the forest growing slowly but inevitably before the sunset. It gets longer and longer, up to the point where it leaves the corner and separates itself from the empty darkness.

The dark figure freezes before the couch. A thought, shy and still weak, rolls over inside Aziraphale’s head. He presses himself toward the glass, all eyes, all ears, full attention focused on the scene unfolding in the apartment below. 

“Well, well, is this what all the fuss is about?” A mysterious stranger sits down on the back of the couch talking in a low soft voice. “Seems like nothing special to me, brother. Is he worth the consequences?”

A pale moonstone hand with blue veins shining through its translucent skin touches the forehead of the man, stretched out on the couch, brushes a stray silver lock from it. 

“I don’t see anything worthwhile in you.” Fingertips freeze on the temple and gently tremble, circling it. The thinnest skin, delicate and peach pink, begins to shine from inside with a warm orange light. The man on the couch frowns, tries to shake off the hand of his head. “And neither shall Crowley.”

It all falls on Aziraphale sharply, in a wave, rushes with the force of a mountain river. 

_ Crowley _ , he tastes the name, rolls it in his mouth with his tongue, like a flat smooth pebble, bites it. It’s sweet, and it’s spicy, with unequivocal bitterness. Has enough pepper to warm, although not enough to burn.  _ Crowley. C-r-o-w-l-e-y. Crowley.  _

“When the sun rises, he will come to you, human.” The black silhouette leans closer, almost touching the ear of the man with his red lips. “With his eyes wide open and a heart on a plate. And you, wandering soul, shall push him away. Let your fears guide you there.”

Aziraphale blinks blindly, as if the light in the living room suddenly got too bright for him, trying to process what he’s heard. 

“I don’t want him wasting time on Earth,” continues the low voice. “Not on Earth, not on humans, not on you.”

His throat closes, the air is pushed away from his lungs in one sudden puff. 

“How dare you!” Aziraphale cries out, startled and indignant to his very core. He immediately presses a hand to his mouth, but the words are like birds; once out of a cage, it’s impossible to get them back in.

The figure in the black robe turns toward the sound, and as it does, the hood falls down. Aziraphale backs from the window, pierced with the sharp look of a stranger.

And wakes up.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the calm, there’s a storm. The eldest children of God come all the way down to Earth for Crowley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Mims and Mia Ugly for being there for me! For reading my stuff before anyone else does.  
> (This was the hardest thing I’ve written so far. It was soooo intense! We are only one chapter to go. I’m so thrilled!)
> 
> P.s: one day it won’t take me months to finish a chapter. But today is not that day.

The fluorescent ceiling lights flicker twice, and the door slowly squeaks open. The blackness of the doorway, stuffed with moving shadows, leaks on the floor and drips toward the hospital bed.

Crowley opens his eyes. His drowsiness vanishes, slips away like the last ray of sun before the pitch darkness taking over the world. His mind, fully awake now, still senses the presence of a ghostly shadow, his eyes search the place. Nothing but the darkness is there, and the seraph peers into it long enough for tears to gather in the corner of his eyes. 

He feels the weight of Aziraphale’s head on the blanket and reaches out to him to gently stroke his silver hair.

“That’s alright,” he whispers, when Aziraphale frowns in his sleep, “I’m here.”

Crowley slowly crawls out of bed. He winces, walking barefoot on the cold floor toward the open door. 

“I can sense you. You know it, right?” The seraph blinks, letting his eyes adjust to the surroundings. He closes the door to the room behind his back, and turns with a grin toward the shadow sneaking in the corridor. “What do you need, brother?” 

“We don’t have much time, Jehoel, they are coming.”

“It’s  _ Crowley,  _ for Heaven’s sake.”

“Our brothers are displeased with your behavior.” Uriel grabs him by the hand. “They are coming for you. And your little earthly friend.”

Something must have changed in Crowley’s eyes, as Uriel nods satisfied.

“You can be angry with me all you want. But now,” Uriel squeezes his hand tightly and looks into his eyes, “you should run,  _ Crowley _ .”

They look at each other for a long moment. The air is tense between them, the darkness gathers, slowly enfolding them like an exotic flower. A little smile blossoms on Crowley’s lips.

“I can’t run. And where?” He shrugs and takes his hand off his brother’s grip. “Besides, I won’t leave  _ him _ .”

“Don’t you get it..?” Uriel cries out in despair, but then shakes his head and smirks. 

Somehow he knew this would be an answer, but you never can be sure. He of all seraphim should know it, as he’s been watching the red lines of destinies and decisions unfold in unpredictable directions.

Uriel sighs, spreading his wings, and looks at Crowley with all the seriousness, all the persuasiveness he’s capable of. 

“You better find a way out before they get here.” Uriel flaps his wings aggressively, so the darkness around vanishes a bit. “No one except  _ you _ is able to save you, brother.”

He kicks off the ground and Crowley’s voice gets lost in the noise of white wings flapping.

Suddenly, the floor, firm and solid before, turns into quicksand. The seraph starts to sink down, deeper and deeper with every movement, every tug. It swallows him, like an enormous Amazonian boa, slowly but mercilessly, up to the point when he’s gone for good.

****

Crowley wakes up screaming, hands clenching the sheets. He gasps for air, looks around; his eyes shoot to the closed door, to an empty chair, to Azirapahale’s pale face by the head of his bed. The last image brings peace to his rushing heart, and Crowley slowly breathes in.

“What is it?” asks Aziraphale, with a concerned gleam in his eyes. “Shall I call someone?”

The aftertaste of the dream gradually fades away.

“I’m alright.” Crowley tries to sit up on a bed, winces with pain. 

It’s like all his wounds are open again, his skin thin like silk, the nerves dangerously naked as an open wire. One word and he’s ablaze. 

Aziraphale places his hand onto the seraph’s shoulder and a wave of pleasant calmness runs up his neck. Crowley grasps the palm and starts talking with his voice subtly trembling:

“Whatever happens now, promise me to stay low.” Crowley’s look nervously jumps from Aziraphale’s face to the door and back. “Whatever you hear, don’t say a word. Whatever you see, don’t interfere...” 

“I don’t understand…”

Just like earlier in a dream, the lights start flickering. But this time it’s real. Crowley jumps off the bed and pushes Aziraphale toward the bathroom door.

“What are you…”

“Move!” 

The temperature in the room gradually drops, Crowley can feel it with his bare skin. He hears the flapping of mighty wings in the distance, coming from every direction at once, and he grabs Aziraphale by the collar and pulls him away from the brightening ceiling lights.

“They are coming for me, no need to bring you forward.” 

“Who’s coming?” Aziraphale points a short look on the door. “What’s going on?”

Crowley stops at the doorway, throws a short look over his shoulder. The room is empty, the bed looks like a deserted battlefield. Everything looks surreal, too sharp in the whiteness. 

His eyes go back to the terrified expression on Aziraphale’s face. He hesitates, wondering how to respond. How much is he allowed to say, to show. 

“Listen to me.” He takes Aziraphale’s hand, squeezes it hopelessly, as the white light, thick and viscous, keeps flooding the room behind him. The seraph starts to speak in a husky, breaking voice. “We don’t have much time. We might not get a chance after...”

Aziraphale’s eyes go wide, he clenches both hands on Crowley’s sleeve.

The seraph’s wings, still smelling like ashes and smoke, shield them both from the blinding light. Some feathers have managed to grow back, but the right wing, which got the worst of it, is still half bald, charred and disfigured.

“You gave my life a meaning, a purpose. Before meeting you, I was just an empty vessel waiting to be filled.” He stutters. “Never could I have imagined how much I was missing. Not until I met you.”

“Anthony...” A deep frown appears on Aziraphale’s face, as he shakes his head.

“Even though it was short, I am grateful for a glimpse of what a life full of love can be.” 

The seraph intensely peers into the blue eyes, sees the realization slowly rising inside of them. He holds his breath, as if about to add something, but instead, lets Aziraphale go, slowly closes the door before the man finds the words to rip the beating and aching heart of him out.

“Stay safe,” he whispers and turns away from the door, each heavy breath coming out as a little steamy cloud. He closes his eyes, trying to gather his thoughts. His heart is pounding inside his rib cage, as the cold wave washes him over. 

“ _ Pathetic _ .” 

The word finds its target, and the seraph takes a step back and clenches his teeth. He feels the movement behind his back, where Aziraphale tries to look through the crack of the door, and spreads his crow wings wider.  _ Don’t make it any easier for them _ , he thinks, putting on the most friendly smile he’s currently capable of.

The white light slowly takes a form and now it’s six silhouettes in the middle of the hospital room. 

“Well, well, look who descended to the lower world.” Crowley meets the look of the oldest brother with all the dignity left in him, proudly squaring his shoulders. “To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?” 

“I had to see it with my own eyes.” Adnachiel slowly examines the room. “I could not believe this is where we would find you, brother. On Earth? Why?”

“Better views, nicer neighbors.” Crowley crosses his arms on the chest. “Thanks for checking on me, but I think that’s enough of a visit. Take care.” 

All seraphim look at him with a silent reproach, and Crowley knows for sure, he won’t be able to get out of this in one piece. He still has another soul to take care of, and that’s what matters.

“We are here not to discuss  _ whether _ you are guilty,  _ Crowley, _ ” Azrael steps up from the shadow with an unpleasant grim, “but to impose a sentence.” 

“It’s your last chance,” Uriel adds softly.

Crowley feels his heart humming in his throat, as the thought, clear as a day, throbs in his temples:  _ Guilty, guilty, all guilty.  _

The seraph clenches his fists, watching the angel of death walking closer. 

“You joined us too, Azrael. The more, the merrier.”

“I would not miss it for the world.” 

Crowley exhales, fixing his eyes on Azrael’s, squinted and full of black soot. __

_ It will hurt, _ he thinks, and his wings tremble behind his back.  _ And yet, keep all your divine eyes on me, brothers, feed me with your conviction, your anger, your disappointment.  _

_ Don’t open the damn door.  _

“Was he even worth it?” 

The question, carelessly thrown in the air, hits right between the ribs, cuts like a spear, straight to the tender heart. Crowley finds blue eyes in the crack of the bathroom door. 

“I have no regrets, not even the tiniest one.” He feels his voice shaking as he continues. “If I could start everything over, I would change one thing. I would come down here earlier and spend as much time as I could listening to Sinatra and...” 

“Enough!” snaps Azrael. As he shouts, the lights flicker.

Something dark and heavy settles over the room, and the seraphim share significant glances.

“You preferred a human to  _ us _ ! You betrayed us, Crowley, your brothers! You betrayed Heaven.” Azrael switches to a whisper. “You betrayed our Mother!”

“Don’t bring  _ Her _ into this,” the seraph growls, exhaling through clenched teeth.

Azrael smiles triumphantly, feeling Crowley’s nerve stretched to the max.

“I tried, Heaven as my witness, to save you. But it’s just...” 

_ “Save me?”  _

Now it’s Crowley’s turn to lose it. He gets to his brother in one sharp movement and freezes with their faces just inches one from another. His wings, like black shining armor, are wrapping him up, dangerously overhanging and casting a deep shadow on Azrael. 

The angel of death smirks, eyes gleaming with satisfaction. 

“Save me?” repeats Crowley calmer, still feeling the cold breath on this skin. “You've almost got me killed, Azrael, take a good look.” He spreads his wings with the growl of pain. Crowley peeks over Azrael’s shoulder at their brothers huddled together. On their faces he fails to find any trace of understanding, and so he goes on: “You shared the story of your little adventure with hellfire on Earth with the family, didn’t you?”

The whispering, like thunder, rumbles through the crowd.  _ How do you like that?  _ Crowley feels the anger rising inside his chest like a huge wave of fire. It comes all the way up his throat. 

“It has nothing to do with this.” Azrael rolls his eyes in a dramatic manner, but right after he nervously glances at Uriel. The look is quick, but it is the only thing Crowley needs. 

“Your brother is right, Crowley,” Adnachiel says finally, after the voices of seraphim slowly go down. “That doesn’t matter. For now. This is your trial, and not his.” 

Crowley’s heart misses a beat. At the corner of the eye, he notices a movement behind the bathroom door and puts everything to not to throw another look toward it. 

“How do you plead?” slowly, each word like a bullet in a gun, asks Azrael with a smug smile.

_ Let him be safe. Let him be alright.  _

Crowley takes a step back and lowers his wings humbly.

“Come home with us.” Kemuel comes out from the crowd and takes a step toward Crowley. “Repent and come home with us, you’ll have an eternity to redeem yourself.”

“Come  _ home _ ?” Azrael laughs. “Did you really think he would come back to Heaven with us? Poor thing.” He circles Crowley, spins his ghostly web around him. “There’s no coming back for traitors, brother. You know it doesn’t work like this.”

Another wave of frightened whispering goes across the crowd. 

“Your confession would make it easier for all of us.” Adnachiel makes everyone step back with a gesture, looking at Crowley with an unexpected warmth: “Don’t waste our time here.”

The room dives in silence. All eyes are fixed on Crowley, who has not a word left on hand. He looks at his brothers - too scared to disobey, to anger their long absent God, too jealous of the strength that he, Crowley, was able to find within himself. 

The words come easily, naturally, and he lets them guide him further. 

_ Mother.  _ He’s surprised to address Her directly, but it has always been only him and Her, hasn’t it?  _ Let him be safe from my brothers’ foresightedness. I accept every punishment you have for me, but let him go. You punished humans once and for all, no other sin this pure soul has performed. Save him. Please. If my plea still means anything to you. _

He waits for a second with his eyes closed. 

What is he waiting for? A warm light from the hospital ceiling? A merciful hand brushing through his flaming hair? The voice, one and only, that sounds through every bird song, every thunderclap and every first scream of a newborn? 

Crowley opens his eyes, the tension slowly leaving his body, and obediently folds in his wings.

“I plead guilty.” 

Not the whisper in the crowd, not the pleased expression on Azrael’s face, none of it matters. The only thing valid is the tender human heart on the other side of the door.

Still beating.

_ Huh,  _ thinks Crowley, licking the bitterness off his bottom lip,  _ that’s what sacrifice tastes like _ .

****

_ Crowley blinks away the teardrop and it slowly drips down his cheek. He wipes his eyes, and gathers all his strength to calm down. Tears don’t mean much in Heaven. _

_ “I can talk to Her. She’ll listen!” _

_ “No need, I knew what I was doing. And what comes after.” _

_ The calmness, the resignation in Lucifer’s eyes is killing him. The charming smile doesn’t sweeten the situation - on the contrary, it makes it worse. But here they are, and Lucifer’s wings are not as silver as they used to be. And the light he brought within himself is not as bright. _

_ He puts both his hands on Crowley’s shoulders, squeezes them gently. They need no words, it’s their way to say goodbye.  _

_ In the distance comes Michael, dressed in full golden armor, with a golden spear in her hand. She lowers her gaze, not ready to meet Crowley’s eyes. It’s hard for everyone, seeing one of them fall. _

_ “How can She let it happen?” _

_ Lucifer smiles and pats his cheek. His fingertips, blackened with soot, leave a trace on it.  _

_ “My every decision, every word led me here.” He sighs, unfolds his wings, slowly rendering into ashes, and meets Michael with another snowwhite smile of his. “I was born a rebel, intended to teach you all a lesson. Not by my words, apparently. By example.” _

_ Crowley slowly sucks in a breath. He’s not ready, not yet. What was he taught? “If he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, 'repent,' you must forgive him.” That’s how it went, right? _

_ “She’ll forgive you. She always does...”  _

“ _ You know it doesn’t work like this, Crowley.” Lucifer shakes his head. “I have to go. _ ”

_ Michael takes him by the elbow. A golden chain appears on his wrists. _

_ More patches of Lucifer’s skin are black now; the nails are turning into claws, the smile becomes a beastly grin.  _

_ “I’m falling from Her grace.” Lucifer says with a shaking voice when he notices his wings gradually turning black, crumbling beneath the touch. He may accept it, but it is still painful and frightening to feel less and less divine with every passing moment.  _

_ They fly away, down to the place that’s going to be Lucifer’s kingdom, just as he dreamed, and leave Crowley alone in the uneasy silence of Heaven.  _

_ It looks like a battlefield, though there was no war there. No blood has been shed; the rebellion was crushed by a mighty hand just a moment after the start. _

_ Crowley turns around, looking for anyone to share his pain with, but except other fallen escorted by archangels, no one stayed to bid farewell. Lucifer betrayed Heaven, he’s not worthy of their sadness. Or so Crowley was told.  _

_ He notices the Almighty on the hill. She follows Her eldest son with Her eyes full of longing and bitterness, and wipes away the lonely tear slowly running down the cheek.  _

_ Looking back at it now, Crowley sees the tears were not of sadness, but of hopelessness. It was destined to end like this, right from the start, thus She knew it all along.  _

_ And it still broke Her heart.  _

****

Aziraphale can’t see or hear everything going on in the hospital room, just catches some fragments, and boy, he doesn’t like what he gets.

He’s not supposed to interfere, and he knows it’s not his burden. 

Crowley meets whatever is about to come with his chin proudly raised. It all comes down to this moment, to this question. He’s not getting any more mercy than this. 

Aziraphale turns all eyes, all ears; leaving an empty shell of his body behind, he enters the hospital room and stands shoulder to shoulder with Crowley. He’s surprised to notice the seraph’s lips moving. The man’s heart skips a beat when the realization hits. He’s praying. 

_ Not for himself, he’s praying for me.  _

Aziraphale wants to reach out to him, to feel his skin, thin and gentle on his cheekbone, to finally share with him everything he’s been holding onto. That night he stole a kiss from the seraph, he meant it. With every smile, every touch, every look - he meant it. Everything, except for those disgusting hurtful words he said in his apartment afterwards, was true. 

As true as love can be. 

Suddenly Crowley opens his eyes, and there’s more confidence in his look than there ever was.

“I plead guilty.”

Aziraphale startles, gets thrown back into his body, to the darkness of the bathroom, and shakes his head. It’s not how this is going to end, it can’t be it. He didn’t get a chance to share his truth, it’s not done yet. Without a second though, he pushes the door open and steps up in the blinding light.

“Stop it!”

The voice pulls Crowley back to the hospital room. He glances over his shoulder. Before the mask falls, Aziraphale notices the gleam of fear in his eyes. A second, and it’s gone.

“Stop this nonsense!”

“Get back inside,” hisses Crowley, his gaze now fixed on his angelic brothers. 

“No.” Sharp and confident.

Aziraphale steps forward and speaks, quickly, waving the fear away with a wide gesture: “You came here to judge your brother, but he’s the only one here to do no wrong.”

The seraphim exchange puzzled looks. Azrael uncomfortably shifts in his place.

“Each of you shall look at your sins first.” He points his piercing look at Adnachiel. “Pride.” Shifts it to Uriel. “Ignorance.” And then glances at the crowd trembling in the background: “Silence and indifference. All guilty.” 

The silence settles in the room for a moment. Enough for Aziraphale to hear the noise of blood running in his veins. 

He looks at Azrael and whispers: “And you are guilty of the ugliest sins of all. Jealousy and envy.” 

Azrael startles, frowns. The words hit him hard, like stones thrown by a righteous hand. His skin turns as white as ever. 

“You… you…” The words get stuck in his throat.

Aziraphale catches a quick half surprised, half impressed look from Crowley.

“Humans can’t have a word in the divine matter.” Sounds another voice, one that gives Aziraphale a round of goosebumps. He tries to look over Crowley’s shoulder. He wants to pinch himself to prove he’s not dreaming, when he sees the one speaking. 

Aziraphale recognizes the face, the one from his dream, the black hood, the light smile. He even feels the touch of the bony hand removing the silver lock from his forehead. 

“Nor can the one aiming to hurt his brother, but too scared to do so with his own hands.” Az spits out as he comes closer to Crowley, grabbing his hand. 

Kemuel’s wings nervously flutter, as he breathes heavily, eyes fixed on Crowley. 

“What have you done?” Crowley shakes his head and staggers back in disbelief. Aziraphale squeezes his hand reassuringly.  _ We are in this together _ .

“I meant good,” Kemuel says firmly.

“What have you done, Kemuel?” repeats Crowley.

A beat. Hesitation gleams in Kemuel’s eyes, but then he speaks up even more confidently: “I did what had to be done. To show you that no human can fill in for the family. He would hurt you anyway, push away, stumble on your heart once the truth about your nature is revealed, I just speeded up the process.” 

“Not  _ you _ .” Crowley shakes his head, trying too hard to get rid of the thought devouring him slowly from the inside. It feels like a black hole sucking in every beam of light from his soul.

He looks back at Aziraphale. Not for confirmation, he knows it already, but to finally focus on the face he doesn’t want to see burn. The trick works, he regains control, his heart rate gradually going down. He squeezes Aziraphale’s hand harder, and for a moment it feels like the last thing keeping him on his feet.

“Enough,” grunts Adnachiel, stepping closer to Crowley. “You confessed your sins, Jehoel. Nothing else matters now.”

Something crackles, the lights start blinking madly. The seraphim slightly recoil. 

“By the power vested in me, I strip thy wings, Jehoel, the prince of divine present, the one among the oldest children of God.” Adnachiel circles Aziraphale and Crowley. “I hereby relieve you of your divine duties. Your soul may no longer belong to Heaven.”

Aziraphale glances at Crowley, and one look is enough for his heart to squeeze. A little harder, and it would turn to diamond. 

Crowley closes his eyes, lets his hand go, ready to feel whatever comes next. Like with any pain, the wait is often worse than the pain itself.  _ That’s why count to three, but pull on two _ .

“Let go Aziraphale.” He whispers his last wish into the blackness. “Let him go.”

He feels something changing inside, not in his body, but deep down his core. 

Crowley escapes, sending his mind out of the place. It flies back in space and time, lands on the freezing street of London, right in the yard between two buildings facing one another with warm light pouring through the windows. He feels again the biting frost, the snowflake landing on his hot skin. He sees the bottomless darkness of the sky and the stars shining and gleaming just for the two of them. Crowley turns his head and sees Aziraphale looking up at the eternal sky. And he is happy. Whatever comes next, he was happy once, and that’s more than some can get.

Instead of pain and fear, the warmth starts to leak over his back. It fills up his bones, covers up his skin, sticks to his fingers when Crowley touches his face without opening his eyes.

He hears Aziraphale gasping somewhere, too far away, and yet so close. He hears Adnachiel murmuring the words again, and Azrael cursing loudly while asking the same question.

“What is happening?”

Crowley breathes in deeply, filling his lungs.

“That’s not what was supposed to happen!”

The seraph senses fear in his brothers’ voices. It gets noisy in the hospital room, uneasy, and still Crowley feels nothing but the heat wrapping him up. He snaps his eyes open.

His skin is glowing from the inside, as if there was a sun hidden within him. He clenches and opens his fists, examining his palms, and shifts his look at Aziraphale. The man stands still, quiet and frightened, and once their eyes meet, he takes a step back. 

“Not sure that’s how the fall should feel, lads.” Crowley looks around at the confused faces of his brothers and starts to laugh. With each second, the light gets brighter, and at some point it leaves no shadow in the room. They have to shield their eyes not to burn their retinas.

Crowley reaches out for Aziraphale’s hand and entwines their fingers.

And the white light devours it all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIGHT?? Come scream at me in the comments.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They relish all that is finally, deservedly still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s time to say our goodbyes, love. 
> 
> It’s been a long and lovely journey, it physically hurts me to publish this chapter, knowing I’m never going to go back to this story ever again. To this Az, to this Crowley, to all the other characters.
> 
> It started like a simple story of an angel slowly falling for a human, but, as you’ll see in the last chapter, it turned out to be so much more than that. 
> 
> And I want to thank @mia-ugly, Mims, and every other pure soul sharing this story with me! It wouldn’t have happened without your kind words!
> 
> Be well, love. And see you in other stories!

When there's no pain, or rather when there’s nothing but quiet, Crowley’s eyes snap open. Through the dense white curtain of pouring light he spots blurry silhouettes of his brothers, blinded and disoriented by the scenery. 

He locates Aziraphale, grasps onto his sleeve, and slightly pulls him closer.

“It’s our cue to leave.” The seraph smiles, and in that smile, there’s just a drop of fear and a spoonful of determination. 

They circle the hospital bed, sprint toward the door, but a faceless shadow rises in front of them and blocks the escape route. The blackness shapes itself into Azrael, leering and gliding toward them menacingly. 

“Where do you think you are going?” 

“Wherever I goddamn please.” Crowley shields Aziraphale, taking a step closer to the angel of death. “Looks like my grace doesn’t belong to any of you after all.” 

“We’ll figure something out.”

“I would  _ love  _ to see you try, brother.” 

Azrael shrinks back from the look Crowley gives him, speechless. 

The seraph bumps him with his shoulder, a smile tickling the corners of his mouth, and leads Aziraphale out of the overcrowded hospital room. They pass by an empty Nurse’s station, navigate around two nurses with a patient on a gurney in the hall, a receptionist and a guard by the coffee machine, all frozen in awkward positions. 

Aziraphale slows down for a moment, glancing around, but Crowley snatches him by the elbow, pushes the revolving door and they run outside. 

The street looks like one of those paintings by medieval war artists. You can spend hours examining every scene, every small meaningful detail within the canvas. 

Trembling with cold, Crowley suddenly becomes extremely aware of his bare feet.

Aziraphale almost knocks over a man with a cane crossing the road, dodging and avoiding a collision at the last moment.

“What did they do to all these people?”

“Nothing.” Crowley slows a bit to keep pace with Aziraphale. “They just stopped the clock.” 

As they pass by a whole family awkwardly bending over a dog asking for belly rubs, the seraph smiles. “If it bothers you this much, I could fix it.”

Aziraphale weighs the statement and smiles back shyly: “Won’t it help us to blend in?”

Crowley halts, unfolds his wings, bringing back the smell of a fireplace, and flaps them sharply, as if attempting to fly upwards. He closes his eyes and focuses. The gust of wind from beneath his wings lifts the dust and the dried frozen leaves up from the road, and, as they whirl back down, something changes. 

The world, like a gear inside an antique clock, budges, and goes on spinning. 

Crowley staggers, his strength abruptly leaving his body.

The family delivers the dog its portion of belly rubs, the man with the cane finally crosses the road, the cars drive by honking and snarling. Crowley and Aziraphale stand on the side of the busy street with life whirling around them, and it all feels almost normal for a moment.

“Where to now?” asks Crowley, wings disappearing behind his back. 

“Wherever you please.” Aziraphale smiles and gently takes his hand. “So, where to, dear?” 

The seraph hesitates for a moment. Out of all the places Earth has to offer, there’s only one he would want to visit. So the answer seems pretty obvious when he says it aloud.

“Home.”

****

With the first ray of newborn sun, night crawls back to its cradle and takes all the horrors of the past day with it. Crowley’s eyelids flutter when the crisp cold breath of the draft touches his cheekbone, gently, like the fingertips of a loving hand. His vision, blurry and colorless, finally regains focus. 

Before his eyes, there first appears a white curtain, swaying in the wind. Then there is a red-hot circle of sun outside the window, the head of the bed, and finally, when he turns with a groan onto his back, a white ceiling with a strip of sunlight cutting it in half. 

He examines the room for a moment, before recognizing it. The memories of the past day rush over him, like a mighty creek in early spring, the cold waters bringing everything back: the theatre, the fire, the hospital room, the long road back and the moment that he, exhausted and squeezed out like a lemon, crashed onto this bed. 

Crowley groans again when his head leaves the pillow. The room tils and, as he grabs onto the windowsill, finally regains stability. 

The world outside is still, calm, as if nothing has happened, nothing has changed. Maybe it was the rain at night that washed it away, cleaned it up; maybe it was the miracle of a new beginning. Either way, not a hint of yesterday is left out there. 

The seraph pushes open the bedroom door and enters Aziraphale’s living room. His face softens, his eyes shine, as he watches the man pouring a good cup of tea, all while merrily humming something catchy. 

“You’re up.” Aziraphale smiles, surprised, and gestures for the seraph to join him at the table. “Feeling any better now, dear? You seemed awfully exhausted yesterday...”

He goes on with something about the hospital, but Crowley doesn’t hear a single word. He sprints across the room and pulls the man in a hug. It’s not a soft and warm embrace, but the tight squeeze of relief, which expresses everything his words never could.

Aziraphale falls silent mid sentence, caught off guard. Then he smiles and reassuringly pats Crowley on the back. They stand like that, two lonesome entities brought here by their thorny paths, for a long moment, which at this point feels like eternity. They relish all that is finally, deservedly still. 

Then, as if realizing he’s being somehow inappropriate, Crowley takes a quick step back.

“What was that?” Aziraphale smirks, taking another cup from the cabinet for Crowley. The room fills with the light scent of jasmine as he pours hot water into each cup.

“I had to make sure it wasn’t a dream.” The seraph looks down at his hands, clenched on the offered cup. “That you were safe from the fire, from my brothers...”

“Safe and sound, thanks to you.” 

“Not thanks to me,” Crowley bursts out with irritation, “rather despite. How selfish of me, to get you involved in all this sickening family drama. I knew from the very beginning, this story doesn’t get to end well, but…”

“But it does!” Aziraphale throws his hands in the air. “We are both safe, you still have your wings, your creepy brothers dare not to set foot here…”

“I don’t care about my brothers and my wings. I never should have put  _ you  _ in danger.” 

Crowley shakes his head, driving away the images that obstinately keep coming. The shadows dancing on the walls, the stinging sparks whirling in the air, the smoke, the white tiles, the pale lifeless face. He slowly breathes out, hiding the sob ready to leave his lips. 

“Oh dear.” Aziraphale steps closer and gently puts a hand under his chin. “Look at me.”

Crowley surrenders and lifts his head. Aziraphale’ s hand rests on his chest as he speaks. 

“It takes two people to build any kind of... relationship. My share is as big as yours, don’t you dare take that away from me.” He smiles, and Crowley matches his smile, but only with his eyes. “It might have been Kemuel planting the thought of pushing you away in my head, but no one made me enjoy every minute of your presence in my life, Anthony. Ever.”

The seraph stays still, despite everything within him screaming to flee. He knows Aziraphale can feel his rushing heartbeat under his palm, and it costs him a little more with every second to control it.

“That night, I kissed you for a reason, Anthony. For a good reason. I’ve never felt so understood in my life, so listened to, and I couldn’t figure out what I did to deserve this.”

Crowley opens his mouth, but Aziraphale shushes him. 

“Please let me finish. I’d like to know where it leads, too.” He nervously giggles, gently stroking Crowley’s chest in circles. The touch is too intimate, it burns a hole right through his clothes, the skin and the bones, straight to his tender heart. “You said back there, in the hospital, that you have no regrets. I do.”

Something breaks down inside the seraph’s chest, he hears the rambling echo in his ribcage.

“I don’t regret the kiss,” Aziraphale peers into his eyes warmly, “I do regret the ‘what ifs” we left behind. What if – I kissed you on any other day? What if – I was brave enough to say how I really felt?”

Crowley shrugs. He’s no Uriel, he doesn’t play with an infinite number of timelines before noon, and then with two more right after. He’s always been more kind of a one-day-at-a-time seraph. “What if” was kind of his thing when the Almighty was still around, but after She was gone, it never really mattered anymore. It was a straight one way road. Up until now. 

“What if…” Crowley smiles. There’s something different about his smile now, and Aziraphale can’t help but notice it. “...for once, you quit wondering and just kissed me?” 

“ _ Oh _ .”

Just that, and nothing comes after. There’s longing in Aziraphale’s eyes, and there’s sorrow. Most importantly, there’s hope, which allows Crowley to find the last crumbs of hope within himself as well when the man closes his eyes and slowly leans in for a kiss. 

The world suddenly narrows to the size of the room. It keeps on shrinking, compressing, and seems like after a moment or two it will collapse, explode, burying Crowley under the rubble. He focuses on the warmth of the hand on his chest, the softness of the lips on his own, but it doesn’t sober him up even a tad. And when they part, he’s drunk with the heat leaking all over his heart.

Aziraphale gives in to the urge and sucks in a short breath.

“I say we grab a coffee and take a walk maybe. I need fresh air, don’t you?” he whispers, slowly coming to his senses. “Unless you have someplace else to be.”

“Naaah.” Crowley smirks, eyes still closed, and rests his forehead against Aziraphale’s. “I am all yours. For tonight, for tomorrow, and for every day yet to come. If you’ll have me.” 

Aziraphale smiles warmly and whispers: “Of course, dear.”

Crowley finally exhales, as if all his troubles just go away along with the heavy air leaving his lungs. He gently takes both of Aziraphale’s hands in his and presses his lips to the knuckles.

_ A kiss from an angel _ . The realization strikes Az like lightning. And that kiss, just like his prayer, feels like the first warm touch of sun after a lifelong winter. An omen, that promises nothing but good. 

****

_ Is it me, or does everything around feel different? _

Crowley observes the world, absorbs it. Decides to keep the question to himself, afraid to scare the moment, too fragile to touch, away. Instead, he takes Aziraphale’s freezing hand and puts it, along with his own, into the deep pocket of his coat. 

As they walk down the alley he has watched from above thousands of times before, the realization pleasantly tickles his palate. The bookshop, the club, the bakery - it’s all still here, but now he gets to be a part of the landscape as well. Something must have changed about his expression, because Aziraphale glances at him with a little smile. And that feels divine, too, being the center of his attention, the pin on his map. 

Crowley grasps onto the feeling and holds tight. 

They enter the woods and the seraph finally speaks up: “Back in the hospital, I promised you answers. Anything particular you want to know?”

“Everything about you,” Aziraphale answers, after giving it some thought. “I’ve got the lay of it, but am dying to hear the whole story.”

Crowley nods. Talking about himself was never his strongest suit, but then it turned out he knew so little about himself. They walk into the shadow of an old oak, their feet buried under the crisp dried golden leaves covered with fresh frost, and he shares the story waiting too long to be told:

“Seven brothers, family business - never lied about that. Me and those goodfellas you had the pleasure of meeting at the hospital are the oldest children of God, the seraphim. Used to sing around Her days and nights, praise Her name.”

“Used to?”

“Before She, er...bolted. And I don’t blame Her, no one can possibly stand such needy children for as long as She did.” Crowley uncomfortably shrugs. “We kept on singing around the empty throne for centuries, in hope of Her coming back. The irony, She never did.”

“Were you two close?”

The seraph smirks. The question catches him off guard, throws him back in time. Just walking the trails of memory, he gets a warm feeling inside his chest, which gradually dispels and gives way to bitterness. 

He doesn’t have to answer, Aziraphale sees it painted all over his face. 

“I’m sorry, Anthony, I didn’t mean to...” Accompanied by a gentle squeeze of his hand.

“I had eternity to get over it.” He softly smiles. “Don’t be.”

“Tell me about Her, dear.”

The seraph smiles. If words have power, this particular one must be the strongest. It leaves Crowley defeated, weakened, waving the white flag above his head. Yet asking for more.

_ Dear _ , as if there was something worthy about him after all.

They approach a huge peaceful lake. Hand in hand, drowning in silence, they watch the ripples going in circles on the water. And time stops running just for a moment, just for the two of them.

****

_ Crowley’s hair was flaming red when he was young, much brighter than now. The Almighty used to say it was fit for his hot temper, and, following that, he had cooled down a great deal since that time. _

_ He sat on the Wall, eyes narrowed with focus, and observed the garden spread out at his feet. He was told not to get close, but was he ever a good listener? _

_ Below, in the clearing, there were two creatures enjoying the warmth of the day, as calm as any other day out here was. He looked just like them, but they were still different. Wingless, as he called them back then, they walked, they talked, they fell asleep in each other’s arms. Nothing special, yet young Crowley spent hours sneaking around, absorbing every little detail. They were Her favorite, after all.  _

_ His curiosity, and, well, the tiny itching sense of jealousy urged him to find out what all the fuss was about. _

_ “Jehoel!”  _

_ Crowley turned around at the voice. With golden light pouring off Her skin, Almighty approached, looking at him and shaking Her head, unpleased. She was smiling, but everyone in Heaven knew that smile promised no good. _

_ “Mother, I was just watching. I was not…” _

_ She raised Her hand to stop him there. She never liked excuses, never needed any. With another wave of Her hand, Almighty invited Crowley to follow Her to the tall gates guarded by an angel, who bowed, as the two of them came closer.  _

_ “I’m sorry, Mother.” _

_ “Why did you leave the throne room, my little spark? What did you want to see here?” _

_ “Those creatures…” Crowley shrugged. “They don’t praise Your name, they don’t guard the gates, they… they do nothing. They seem useless. What are they for?” _

_ God laughed, and it was the sound that announced the return of the rain to the desert.  _

_ “Does it all have to have a purpose, dear?” She pushed the gates open. “If so, let’s say I created those ones for love.”  _

_ They entered the garden. It smelled like fresh morning there, it smelled like promise. They strolled down its paths and God taught Crowley to fold his wings so he didn’t startle the humans.  _

_ They listened to the humans’ imperfect, but sincere singing. She smiled, when they presented Her with flowers – the white and blue irises. For their purity and in hope of keeping it. _

_ That day Crowley learnt a lot about humans. And most importantly, he learnt to love them.  _

_ It all happened before the serpent, the apple tree and the sin. Here they were, enjoying the pleasantness of the lush green landscape and the presence of God. The world made sense back then. _

****

Aziraphale smiles. It feels surreal, talking about God like this, as if She was just any woman living next door.

“She seems nice.” He peers into the dark rippling surface of the lake. “How come She wasn’t so forgiving with humans?”

Crowley’s face becomes serious, a deep wrinkle forming across his forehead. He looks into Az’s eyes and talks with a shaking voice:

“Of all Her kids, Aziraphale, She has always put humans first. Loved you enough to give you all the stars, the sunsets and the rain. The cycle of life with all the perks, the ability to choose whom to grow old with. The free will.”

Crowley feels his heart racing in his throat. It’s been so long, yet it still hurts, still bleeds. He can’t stand the look Aziraphale gives him and averts his eyes.

“I grew to love humans. Deeply, sincerely. But never discovered what was the difference between us.”

“Because there is none.” Aziraphale smiles. “And never was.”

The seraph frowns and shakes his head, inviting the man to go on. 

“God loved Her angels, Her humans, apparently, She even had a soft spot for Her demons at some point.” Aziraphale’s voice lowers, as he continues. “I doubt She favored anyone in particular. Don’t you think if your brothers just stopped for a moment, searched the depths of their souls, they would discover their own free will hidden there too?” 

Crowley turns toward the water and slowly breathes in, digesting the thought. 

“It’s always easier to assume every step is predestined, planned, leaving one with no choice. In a way, it’s liberating.” Aziraphale shrugs, trying to find the right words for it to make any sense. “But guess what, Anthony, take away God, Heaven and Hell, and you are just a bunch of confused and lost children. Just like humans.” 

“Sheep that have no shepherd.” 

“But still each returns home in peace. God gave us trouble, but everyone has a decision to make about how to deal with it. Some end up being mistakes, some turn into unexpected opportunities.”

Crowley feels tears gathering in the corners of his eye as the thought that he was driving away for such a long time finally snaps, a rubber stretched out on his wrist.

Aziraphale watches him silently for a moment.

“She left us a map, dear. A guide, if you will, not a detailed blueprint to follow. We need to figure out what we are building on our own. Horrifying? Definitely. But that’s the best part about bearing that free will, too.”

The seraph glances at him, fighting the urge to unfold his wings and leave, once and for good, to the world, where there is a plan, a cause, a clear path through the woods to follow. 

But the next question waves away all of these thoughts, pulls his feet back onto the ground.

“What do you think happened yesterday?” 

They watch lightning striking in the distance, and, after a moment, the silence breaks under the clap of thunder reaching the beach. 

“Frankly, no idea.” Crowley shrugs his shoulders helplessly. “A glitch in Heaven’s systems? A divine intervention?” 

“Do you think it might be God?”

The seraph smirks.  _ If only I had all the answers. _ He would lie, though, if he said the thought never occurred to him.

“I -... I don’t think it was Her.” He sighs. “It seemed like the trick simply didn’t work on me.”

Aziraphale nods, but something keeps troubling him, and he breathes in the fresh electrified air that precedes the storm. Crowley patiently waits for the feeling to shape into words inside the man's mind. 

“You’ll be alright.” He gently smiles and caresses Crowley’s hand, when he notices him frowning and unconsciously clenching his fist in his pockets. “God never gives one a burden one can’t handle.”

“Ah, you’d be surprised.” The seraph smirks and looks back at Aziraphale. “But you are right. She’s long gone, and the last time I checked Heaven didn’t fall apart, nor did Hell freeze over.”

A cold gust of wind suddenly bends the trees around the lake down with its mighty hand, paints the water with an ornate pattern of ripples and, tripping over the hills of sandy beach, slips under Crowley’s coat. He trembles and breathes into his collar to warm himself up.

“I bet it never rains in Heaven, too.” 

Aziraphale looks up at the dark clouds sailing through the skies in their direction. There’s something magical about the sight of a storm being born, but that’s the kind of magic you want to witness from afar. From under a roof, preferably. 

“We’re better be going, dear.”

Crowley nods and follows Aziraphale back to the path, and they continue their conversation - about Heaven, Hell, angels and demons, about the past. It looks like Az’s curiosity is never going to run out.

And so, they approach the tiny coffee shop on the corner, right on time to hide from the first cold drops reaching the ground. Crowley holds the door open for Aziraphale, letting him in first, then stays outside for a moment, watching the street. Empty, darkened with anticipation of the downpour, it brings up unexpected calmness to his tired soul. 

It awakens the sense of something slowly approaching. Something good crawling into his life.

_ Thank you, _ Crowley looks up and sends a clear message into the universe.  _ Thank you, Mother. For this day, for being able to walk these streets, and for him. _

For the first time, he has nothing to ask, he has nothing to pray for.

Crowley slowly inhales and walks inside.

****

They settle at a table for two by the window and a comfortable silence nests between them. The odd feeling of being in his true place, right where he was destined to land after all, pushes Crowley forward through the thoughts he’s not ready to discover within himself. The thoughts are bold and hopeful, he can’t afford to be the same just yet.

He watches Aziraphale looking around with excitement and his heart trembles inside his body like a tiny hummingbird clenched in a wide palm. That look, the one this man gives to the whole world, both in its beauty and its ugliness, sheds lights on everything it’s pointed at and automatically makes it a little bit nicer.

And when Aziraphale glances at Crowley, all he can think of is whether, through those blue eyes, he transforms into the better version of himself too.

“What are you smiling at, mister?” 

They look at each other with clear affection, and Crowley can’t help but think about everything they’ve been through to get here. It’s been a long road from the rooftop down to this coffee shop, and he would never ever have believed this is how it all plays out. And yet, against all odds, here they are.

“Even though it’s too good to be true, I find this story so easy to buy.” Crowley keeps smiling, and his smile is warm, careless. “The smell of coffee, the rain, you, holding my hand.  _ And they lived happily ever after _ , huh? The kind of fairytale we tend to fall for...”

“Sometimes it, indeed, ends well. Why not for us?”

“Yeah. But when the universe hands over a bill, will it be something I can afford?”

Aziraphale reaches out across the table and gently strokes Crowley’s hand. 

The seraph still cannot find his peace with the idea of the choice steering the faith, not the other way around. Part of him keeps waiting for a heavenly conductor to jump out from behind the curtain and ask him to get off, as he never bothered to buy a ticket for the Merry Express. Lost in worry, he keeps unintentionally drawing circles with his fingertips around Aziraphale’s knuckles. 

“Life is not all disappointments and payback, Anthony.” The man lets out an assuring smile. “Sometimes the universe feels like giving us a break. It allows us to get a simple cup of coffee, enjoy good company. Learn to cherish these rare moments of calm, you may want to get used to them.”

Crowley nods. He may as well get used to this laugh, to this smile, and to everything that comes with it. He doesn’t belong to Heaven anymore, but somehow Heaven still reaches out to him with every little detail he loves so much about this man who he refuses to take his eyes off of

Life holds too many questions, and Crowley is desperate to find answers for at least some of them.

“I had a conversation once on the nature of fate and destiny...” starts Aziraphale.

“I bet with Alice.” Crowley smiles. “The woman can talk about potatoes for hours.”

The mention of a good friend makes the man grin. He makes a mental note to call her once they are back home, and continues to follow the thought that keeps slipping away.

“One wonders if there is an invisible hand leading us forward or if it is our hand that shapes the future, like a potter shapes porcelain? Do we have a say in what places we’re heading to or are we predestined to make a particular choice?”

“Not sure I follow.”

“Is it possible that you simply chose not to fall, Anthony?” 

The seraph frowns, as his mind takes him to the places he doesn’t want to visit. Back to the better times, or rather to the moment they stopped being any good - to the moment of the First Fall. And don’t be fooled, it hurts as much every time. 

“If it was up to angels, Az, I doubt any one of us would  _ choose _ to fall. It’s not like there are any perks.”

But the doubt is already planted, so the thought never leaves his mind.

“I came across a theory once, that Heaven is one’s happiest memory and Hell is one’s deepest regret. It’s your guilt that chains you down there for eternity, makes you relive that exact same moment over and over and over again, as a punishment. What if it’s not Heaven’s or God’s forgiveness one seeks, but his own? What if one falls only when considering himself guilty? ”

Crowley feels Aziraphale’s look on his skin, as he awaits any reaction.

“I don’t know.” His voice is shaking, as he repeats: “I... don’t know. That’s not something I say often. I guess I have to get used to it, as this is how life is going to be now, right? More questions, no answers, that sort of thing.”

“Pretty much,” Aziraphale grins. “That’s what it’s like for us, mortals, just a never ending Q-with-no-A session.”

“See?” Crowley throws his hands in the air. “That’s what I love about humanity. You are clueless, but the lack of answers never stops you from wondering.”

Aziraphale shrugs his shoulders unsurely, debating his answer.

“We might not receive answers from God directly, but that’s not the only way. We have our beliefs, our religion. We have art! It aims to explore, to exhaust all the possibilities. With every written word, every brushstroke on the canvas, we understand the world within and the world without better. Since Almighty made us in Her image, with every step closer to knowing ourselves, we make one step toward Her, too.”

“I wish Her other children could see it this way.” Crowley’s look travels across the rows of tables covered with striped clothes, couples and families carelessly chattering around them. “Not sure I’m there yet.”

They don’t notice the woman in a white apron approaching, and don’t stop their conversation until she takes a little notebook out of her pocket and clicks her pen, ready to take their order. 

“What can I get you, boys?” 

Aziraphale glances up at the waitress, and she smiles softly at him. 

“A coffee, please.” 

The woman nods and shifts her gaze at Crowley: “And for you, little spark?” 

Crowley blinks quickly, like trying to recover from a direct punch, and finally manages to tear his gaze off Aziraphale’s face. He looks up at the woman, and his eyes widen with something Az simply can’t interpret.

“I-...I...”

It’s just a second, and the expression is gone. 

“What happened, dear, a cat got your tongue?” The woman laughs, and the whole world lights up reflecting her laugh. 

Crowley keeps looking at her, with the words trapped deep inside his throat. 

“Make it two, please,” Aziraphale murmurs, when the pause goes on for too long. 

The waitress nods, a big radiant smile stuck onto her face, and puts the notebook back into the tiny pocket of her apron. She takes the menus off their table, fixes the tablecloth and, just before leaving, winks at Aziraphale.

When her white apron gets lost in the crowd next to the counter, Aziraphale looks at Crowley, lost in his thoughts while distantly watching the storm powering up outside.

“Everything alright, dear?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Crowley tries to squeeze a smile out of himself, but it turns out poorly.

“Have you two met before?” 

”One way to put it, yeah,” the seraph smirks, “but that was, like, forever ago. In another life. Nevermind. You were saying?”

Aziraphale decides to play along and grants him a soft smile. Some unclear image keeps muddying the waters of his mind, but he purposely pushes it aside. Instead, he asks:

“Have you put any thought into what’s next?”

The seraph frowns. Everything was happening so extremely quickly, he didn’t get a second to think it all over, to ask himself this same question. After an eternity of living for a greater purpose, he’s one step from discovering what it’s like to live without one, and the truth is, he has never been so terrified in his entire life. 

He’s ready to try and give a voice to his concerns, fears and hopes, when he hears the footsteps rushing back. The waitress puts a steamy cup in front of each of them. 

“Thank you,” Crowley says under his breath. 

“You are quite welcome, love.” The waitress’s look jumps from Crowley to Aziraphale and back, and the softest expression appears on her face. She smiles, and says to him joyfully: “It's lovely here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, the place is charming.” 

“Enjoying the views? The company?” 

Not waiting for his answer, the waitress turns to Aziraphale. She wears a soft smile that could have fooled anyone, but her eyes, like high mountain lakes, are full of ancient cold longing. And he sees it clearly, as she speaks to him.

“Take good care of this angel here for me, young man, won’t you?”

Aziraphale stares at her, smitten, for a moment, then gathers all his strength and directs it into one little nod. The woman nods back, satisfied, and the sorrow immediately winds away.

“Enjoy your coffee.” She smiles at Crowley. “And your stay, love, I know you'll feel right at home soon.”

The seraph sharply exhales with a noticeable relief. Her words, like a plantain leaf, wrap his bruised heart up and soothe it gently, taking away all the things troubling him since the moment he first set a foot down on Earth.

“Thank you,” he repeats, but this time those simple words sound different, more meaningful somehow.

The feeling of another conversation happening simultaneously, on some other level, doesn’t leave Aziraphale, as he watches the two of them looking at each other intensely. 

As a farewell, the woman puts her hand on Crowley’s shoulder and gives it a little squeeze. 

Aziraphale gradually comes back to his senses, and dozens of questions go rushing inside his skull. He pulls the cup closer to himself, takes a sip and savors it.

“Care to tell me what all that was about?”

“Ghosts from the past visiting.” Crowley hides the smile behind his cup and washes the words down his throat with a swig of coffee. “And one answer less to be looking for.” 

He looks around deciding what to say next, studies the world outside diving into the twilight. 

“So, back to your earlier question...” He shrugs. “I have to look for a new place, probably, since my apartment was so shamelessly occupied in my forced absence. Preferably, in the same area. Stay still for a moment and just see what’s next...”

“Sort things out?” 

“Yeah, pretty much. Not sure where to start, though.” 

Aziraphale nods with understanding. He surely has never been in any even nearly similar circumstances, but he gets the gist. It’s never easy to start things over.

“Luckily for you, I know just the perfect jumping-off point.” He smiles and asks in a low silvery voice: “Would you do the honor of dining with me tonight?”

To his surprise, Crowley answers with no hesitation. Saying “yes” was never as easy, and, for once, he decides to go along with the current, simply follow his heart. Maybe it’s finally that moment when he doesn’t have to move against, to do despite, but just enjoy the journey as it is.

He looks at Aziraphale enjoying his coffee, just his eyes shining above the cup, and the world suddenly makes sense again. And it turns out to be quite simple. 

They talk for the rest of the evening, and they laugh, and their laughter has that sincere infectious jingle in it, that makes other customers look over their shoulders with a smile. 

No one notices, but the jukebox in the corner, which has been dead for over a decade now, without any attention from customers or the crew, turns on again. And in dozens of voices sounding from the speakers, the world itself sings about something lovers of all times call fate. 

Crowley closes his eyes for a moment, giving in to the feeling, and memories, warm and dear to his heart, fill the place along with the mighty voice confessing what he could never put into words. 

_ For nobody else gave me a thrill _

_ With all your faults, I love you still _

_ It had to be you, wonderful you _

_ It had to be you _

When the last of the music stops and the sun finally slips down beyond the horizon, the night awakens from its restless sleep. They rush into it, happy and free, and the street, like the fate line cutting the almighty palm in half, divides the world into before and after. 

Back at the coffee shop God warmly smiles, tired and proud, as she polishes the last glass and puts it back on the shelf. She flips the sign on the door, takes off Her apron and switches off the lights. And the world, heeding to Her call, sinks into darkness.

And the angel and the human, roaming the deserted streets of London, find their fate in each other’s arms under the watchful gaze of stars twinkling high in the endless sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to hear from you one last time in the comments ❤️


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